Instruction from Guillaume Bijl (BE)

The Belgian artist Guillaume Bijl sent a postcard from Antwerp. The postcard shows Goya's painting „La maja desnuda“, the „Naked Maja“, hanging in the prado. On the flip side his instruction:

„Dear Max, find a girl who will pose like that, make a photo or drawing in this position. Print the photo or drawing in the same size as Goya's painting. Hang it in the exhibition“.

Goya's famous painting is 197x97 cm big, and shows a naked woman. And I am new in Gibraltar. What to do? I was thinking and thinking... Just ask a woman in a bar? Going to the live drawing session and ask there? But instead of thinking I needed to act, because time was flying.

Last Friday I luckily met the solution on a dinner that was given to meet people from the local art scene! A great young woman from Gibraltar, I will from now on call her Maja 2016. I told her about my problems to find a woman who would get naked in front of and then drawn by a stranger. Her reaction was simply wonderful: „I can do it, I want to support your project, I do it for you because I see you stand behind your work“.

With relief and excitement we met this morning. She got naked, placed herself on a sofa and posed like Goya's Maja. And I tried to draw her on a paper as big as the painting's original size. Guillaume Bijl, who knows me since I was an art student, probably knows that my drawing skills are not the best. Let's say: zero... But I tried my best, and here we go. Maja desnuda, 2016. I will update this post when the drawing has found its place in the exhibition, which will open this Thursday.

Thank you for this instruction, Guillaume. It was a challenge in many ways. And thank you a lot for posing for me, Maja.