Interactionism in painting by Govert Flint

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Govert Flint calls his work interactionism. This is because his paintings interact not only with the viewer, but also with each other.

In traditional painting, a painting is a flat canvas with an image printed on it. Proceeding from this, the artist can show some event only from one specific point of view. When there are several characters in the picture, then some of them are perceived by the viewer as the main ones, others as secondary ones. In Govert Flint's Interactionism, a painting is part of the context created by a group of images. The artist's idea is not contained in any one image, but in the group as a whole.

Painted pictures and their characters actually interact with each other. For example, in one image we see a group of girls walking. In the picture opposite, women are depicted, in the glasses of which the very girls are reflected. By using space instead of one flat surface, the author makes the depicted situation more real. “The audience is not only looking at the picture, but is in the middle of it,” says Govert Flint about his invention.

Govert Flint claims that the education of an architect helped him to come to this direction in painting. In architecture and design, it is very important to take into account the context and environment, and the author decided to transfer this knowledge into his painting classes. At first, he painted a series of two paintings interacting with each other, then their number increased. There are already five such films in the 'I See Girls' series.

Govert Flint was born on June 7, 1989 in the Dutch town of Laren. As a child, the boy dreamed of becoming an inventor, after graduating from school he was educated as an architect in Delft, but during his studies he realized that his real vocation was painting.