Don't Look Back, You Better Don't Look Back [Consultation with the therapist] Painting

"As a journalist for a Daily newspaper and an inhabitant of the city of Ede, I have come to know Ben Manusama as one of the best artists I know. Ben Manusama is, in a sense, the dark horse of the Dutch art world. It says something, in fact: quite a lot, that he is active and valued as a partaker in the Hague circle of artists known as the Pulchri Studio. Ben Manusama combines a precise, almost medical feel for the heartbeat and feverish pulse of our image-and media-saturated times with the craftmanship, the artistic skill and drive to capture 'fast' and ostensibly modern images, e.g. newspaperclippings, newsphoto's etc., in a durable, moving, extra sensitive way, the way of a painting artist that enables us to look twice, or three times, and so doing enrich ourselves by a deeper understanding. Ben Manusama often leaves from a snapshot or a Polaroid-like photograph, to lift it to a higher, more durable level, at once fixating it in paint and surprising the viewer and art lover with his specific slight of hand: a masters' study of fast movement - in paint. His personal quest and comment on the news- and media-industry that dishes out images in bulk, is a point of meditation and reflection for me as a journalist. Ben's paintings never cease to move me on a very profound level, even to tears. It is rare to find a highly esteemed and valued artist/painter nowadays who manages to keep up the higher standards of quality and at the same time asks questions and places footnotes in the margin of our society, without compromising for one second on the artistic quality; to me, only the enigmatic and anonymous public spaces-artist 'Banksy' comes to mind. I feel privileged to know Ben Manusama and follow up close his journey as an artist of rare excellence and reknown."- Hillbrand Rozema, Dutch journalist/columnist. | BEN MANUSAMA (Delft 1957) Lives and works in Ede/ Arnhem, the Netherlands. Member of Pulchristudio, The Hague, founded by Mesdag, Breitner and others in the late nineteenth century, The Hague.