Honden en mensen before 2009

Aat Verhoog made "Honden en mensen" with paint on paper. The green hill gives way to dogs, then to people. It's like one part of the brain gives way to another, as different compartments come into view. I like the casual way the artist puts it all on the surface, how the work of painting is visible. You can see the layers of colour on the ground, and the way the paper grain comes through. I wonder what Verhoog was thinking? Maybe they were thinking about landscape and how it becomes a space for animals and people, who are also animals of a kind. What is that red circle obscuring the face? It's like a big idea came and wiped it away. The running figures are like a memory, something that's fading from view as something else comes in. In this way, painting becomes a way of working through things, or of feeling through them, which is kind of the same.