Ik wil het niet zien, maar het moet

A poetic essay about painter and graphic artist Co Westerik in an unusual form. Westerik is one of the most highly regarded and bestselling artists in Holland. He works in the minutely realistic style on canvases that slowly emerge in a highly crafted way. As a result, his production is low and this also makes his paintings special and desirable. But this film is not about their market value.With his film, Jan Wouter van Reijen emphatically departs from the traditional genre of the documentary portrait of an artist. He looked for a different way to draw out the motives, things and emotions he suspects behind the paintings. He decided firstly to visualise the works meticulously and allow them to speak for themselves. He did not want to focus on the verbal commentary of the artist himself and certainly not on experts who tend to use their woolly art-historical jargon to deny us a view of the concrete work. So, to communicate his findings, he used music (by a piano quartet) and he visits five poets who try to communicate in their language why the world of Westerik is so fascinating and moving.Twenty years ago, Van Reijen also made a film about Westerik, which indicates this is not a shortterm project.