Punk in the Netherlands

Vitamin X
Oil on canvas paper, 12 x 16 inches, 2017

In 2016 Eye Amsterdam, a film archive and museum, organized a festival to celebrate forty years of punk culture. Films, events, and concerts were scheduled and an LP called Fury! was published for the occasion. The LP is a remarkably exciting collection of Dutch punk music featuring, among others, the best known Dutch punk band The Ex. The first track to secure a spot in the Top 100 2017 is however by the band Vitamin X, a hardcore punk band formed in Amsterdam in 1997. The painting was frustrating to complete as it was intended to be a transparent gestural oil sketch on top of a gestural texture study of the palms and bamboo in my backyard. Three out of the four musicians of Vitamin X (drummer Danny, second from left, singer Marko Korac, second from right, and bassist Alex Koutsman, right) went as planned but number four, guitarist and songwriter Marc Emmerik, didn't work out and kept me messing with the painting much too long. The song by Vitamin X that opens side b from Fury! is called About to Crack.