Grandfather of five grandchildren and only 53 years old. Typical of Rob Sjouke, who likes to express his life in grand gestures. It will not be for nothing that he was a dancer with the Dutch National Ballet and that his son is now making a career as a dancer there. Yet this piece is not about Rob Sjouke the ex-dancer, but about Rob the painter, who is taking part in Project Rembrandt 2020.
Dance World
I have known Rob for a while. He was the talented student at the Dance Department at the Royal Conservatoire. He was the showbiz. Had everything in his body, the best ballet feet you can think of (a very high instep, desired by all dancers), classic lines, a beautiful head with a great head of hair. A good chat too and a Hague cockiness. That must have been why he was often sent out of class. Along with me.
Anyway, Rob made a fine career as a dancer: from Northern Ballet in England to the Royal Ballet of Flanders, before impressing at the Dutch National Ballet. His son Sem Sjouke is now Dutch dance talent there and is slowly emerging as a filmmaker (see a new dance project filmed at the Kröller-Müller Museum). A proud father, in other words.
Switch
You see it more often: dancers who choose a life focused on others after being preoccupied with their appearance for years. After dancing, Rob threw in his career as a social worker. Working hard with the seamy side of society as a manager in a Salvation Army community centre. When I called him, he was just educating a group of Moroccan youths in a schoolyard, I arrived at his home, and he was taking in a Bulgarian family. Target groups that others prefer to ignore are target groups for Rob.
Project Rembrandt
But art pulls at him, the mistress who still looks good rears her head again. Within five years, he taught himself the craft of portrait painting, is full of it, sprinkling terms like pigment, medium or colour contrast. Can you make a living from that now, I wonder. A rotten question, which is precisely what beginners are always asked. Rob, however, is willing to go deep, into poverty too. His wife Iris works in a garden centre and they look after the grandchildren, so Rob has to work extra hard to earn as a painter.
Participate in Project Rembrandt is therefore convenient. Since everyone advised him to just give it a try, he signed up with almost a thousand amateur painters to master the ancient craft of painting over six months and under the watchful eye of Pieter Roelofs, head of Painting and Sculpture at the Rijksmuseum, among others. The serious programme will be provided with a light-hearted note by a Gerard Joling or Simone Kleinsma and Rob, provided he gets past the first round in the programme, will feel like a fish out of water among these creative opposites. Did I mention he was a showbiz at school?
Vanity
Ah, all is vanity, says Ecclesiastes. But you don't need to tell Rob that. He knows the best and worst of both worlds, outer and inner. And he can present that to you in a glowing half-poetic argument, which becomes fairly incomprehensible but still makes sense again. Whether you have absinthe on, I tease him.
Speaking of Van Gogh, despite being considered an evangelist in his work, Rob's preference is for Rembrandt. In his words, 'Rembrandt sought God by painting people, and mankind is often looking for God anyway. Turn that into a painting and you have true art.'
Good to know
English (UK) 
Nederlands 
Français 
