Soul Strangers, Alone Together

Surrounded by faces and hands in bright colours.
It’s always uncomfortable to meet new people.
There are so many of them here, but nobody makes contact.
Nobody is watching us, watching them.
Who are they? They are all me. Or maybe they’re you.
They could be anybody who has ever felt unseen and unacknowledged.
All the people from my paintings come from the same place.
They have so much to say, but they won’t dare to speak up.
They just sit there, quietly, staring off into space.
You can tell they have so much love to give by the warmth of their hands.
But their faces remain absent.
There were not born like that; I think the world raised them to be so.

The easy road never felt rightful for me.
I am quite comfortable walking alone.
It shows in my paintings, where faces remain absent even when surrounded by many others.
Always in search of something.

– Peggy Kuiper, notes on her paintings

As a young girl writing, dreaming, and drawing in her private journals, Peggy Kuiper imagined that one day when she was older, she would either be a painter or a dancer. A self-described loner and introvert, she would use dancing as the language to express her wild ways when the words clouding her throat could not. Now as a painter working out of a converted ballet studio in Amsterdam, amongst barre and mirror-lined walls, she still dances before she begins to paint.

With the warm, lush colours of her palette, she creates characters, her companions, on whose masked faces and elongated fingers she layers her most vulnerable feelings. They are companions she finds it hard to part with, but when she does, she is happy for them to dance through the world into other people’s lives, where they hear the most intimate secrets.

The theme of this issue of JANE is centred around community and a togetherness of ideas and spirit, and I was wondering how you responded to that? As artists and writers, especially, we spend so much time alone.

I really relate to the theme of this issue because I’m a super loner, but at the same time, I move in a crowd of people that are inspirational to me.

You’ve moved through many crowds. Before you were an artist, you worked in graphic design, and then after that as a photographer. Each of those communities are such worlds unto themselves. How did you find yourself belonging to them and moving from one to the other?

At art school, I did graphic design, and I chose graphic design because there are so many different disciplines available that you can combine, like typography, images, and composition. And then I did an internship with Anthon Beeke in Holland. He’s more like an artist than a designer, and I was very much inspired by him. He’s very autonomous, so people came to him for his distinct ideas and style. I had such a good internship, but it wasn’t like real life at all, because after school I worked for a company, and I only did designs for clients that had very special requests, and I thought, Huh, this is different! I did that for two years and then quit my job, which is when I decided to do photography.

I think visually, I don’t think in words. I see details, so I knew I wanted to work with something visual. But I didn’t know anything about photography, so I watched a lot of YouTube tutorials and just went for it. That was in 2014. Assignments came, and I always worked within teams, for brands and for newspapers, as well as doing more commercial photography. But I always worked within a team and for a client, so I was curious to see what would happen if I did something on my own. What would I create? As a kid I loved to draw, so I thought maybe I should do that again. I started and then I didn’t stop. That was three years ago.

That’s amazing that it was not so long ago that you started, because your paintings are so striking, and they have such a strong, distinct, and unique aesthetic—a signature of sorts that seems like it would’ve taken years to develop.

I think the signature was something I learnt through my years of graphic design and photography. I think it’s a combination of things I saw and did, because I can also relate to my photography in my paintings. My soul is in my paintings; they show what I want to say and how I feel as an introverted person.

I guess you can layer all that emotion onto the painting, whereas it’s a lot harder to draw that out from someone else, which is what you potentially have to do in photography.

Yes. As a kid, I was really dreamy, and when I was around other people, I would love to be in the middle of them but remain unspoken. I loved to be there and quietly observe. But people always found that really uncomfortable because they couldn’t reach you, and they felt that. Now that I’m older, I’m more at ease with that feeling. But I layer the emotions of how I felt as a child in the faces of all my paintings. They can be there, so I don’t have to hide.

That’s probably why the paintings are so striking—because they come from a real emotion that you’re trying to capture and place on them. I understand that feeling of wanting to be alone but with people. I think that’s why I love interviewing people, because I can be with them but the attention isn’t so much on me. Tell me more about your internship with Anthon Beeke.

Anthon Beeke and his wife, Lidewij Edelkoort, who is a Dutch trend forecaster, were both quite a bit older and really big inspirations for me. I wasn’t shy, but I was quiet, and Anthon was super provoking, so I needed to be able to deal with that. At the same time, he accepted me for how I was. We had beautiful conversations. Sometimes after lunch, I would come and sit down in his office, and he would tell me stories about how he started and what his inspirations were. I think he made such a big impression on me as a person but also in my work, in the way that I see things.

That’s such a beautiful relationship to have. I come from an Indian heritage where there’s a strong lineage of guru and student that goes unbroken throughout time, and knowledge gets handed down and transmuted through each person.

At the moment, I don’t have a gallery, but I do have beautiful conversations with a big gallery owner, Alex Daniels of Reflex Amsterdam, who has really big artists of different generations. I really value that. It’s important to have those people around me.

You’ve said that one way that Anthon influenced your photography is in the way that it can be quite outspoken and playful. In some ways, I feel those qualities are in your art too. Would you say that?

I think the colours make it playful. I want the colours to be comfortable to look at so it’s inviting. But then when you look to the paintings themselves, you perceive more of an inner feeling, like a subtle facial expression that’s uncomfortable or dreamy. The drawings also have a childish feel to them, the long fingers and noses, and so it also becomes playful in that way too.

I wanted to ask you about the fingers because I use my hands a lot to express, and when I speak I always move them or hide behind them. I think hands can be very expressive parts of our bodies that are often overlooked and that can say things more than our faces. I was wondering is that why you have the elongated fingers, to draw attention to the hands, or is it something else?

I think the faces and the hands portray important feelings because the facial expressions are super vulnerable, so sometimes I put masks on the figures as well, to cover them up a little. But the hands, for me, are very comforting. It reminds me of my mum a lot. I lost my mum when I was very young. I think they’re to comfort myself and people around me. If I see somebody I really like, I give them touch. And because of the long fingers [in my art], it becomes more important, as if I really want to reach out.

They are so comforting, aren’t they? I inherited my hand gestures from my father, and he passed away a few years ago, so I find them comforting too. And it’s so funny, I’m so similar. If I like a person, I’ll touch them and be affectionate towards them, and if I don’t like a person, I won’t, which I sometimes worry they will notice.

It’s interesting we’re speaking through a computer but I feel such a connection [with you].

I’m so glad you say that, because I do too.

Maybe because we recognise things in each other.



It’s interesting how so much of what we are influenced and inspired by is other people in our community. I know that Freud’s The Uncanny inspired you too—his idea that the uncanny is finding the unusual within the confines of the comforting, which is what you’ve mentioned you do with your inviting colours and unusual, subtle facial expressions. I was wondering, apart from Anthon and Freud, who else has inspired you?

I have two people in mind. One is my grandma. I relate to her visual tastes. If I visualise her house and interiors and the prints that she had hanging— Paul Klee and Modigliani (not real ones)—I was really intrigued by the colours in her house and the artists she had there, things that she just ripped out of magazines.

The other one is Marlene Dumas. She also has the uncanny motif. I don't want to compare myself with her, and I don’t know if that’s her motive but more what I read in her art. She always has themes that are hard to look at or taboo, but the way she paints it is beautiful and tragic at the same time. I think that’s so powerful. That’s a beautiful way to communicate something that is a tough subject or things that are around you that are hard to look at.

You’ve said in your photography work that you love to alienate your character, which I think comes through very strongly in your paintings too, that element of estrangement. Even when your characters are in big groups, it doesn’t feel like they’re really relating to each other. Can you tell me a bit more about that?

One painting with a group of people, they all have exactly the same introverted expressions. I was fantasising what it would be like if I only had people like me around me. I have a lot of extroverted friends, different kinds of friends, and it works, it clicks, it’s a good combination because it takes me out of my comfort zone. What would happen if everybody was sitting around in their own headspace? Nothing would happen! We need other people to be different. That’s what I would often wonder when I was at a party, when I really wanted to relate to somebody. But afterwards I found out that it’s also important that you can’t relate too, because it makes the dynamic interesting.

It does. It creates a sort of tension that’s exciting.

And it’s more important that everybody can be themselves. My really extrovert friends throw these really extroverted parties, but sometimes I feel like ‘I’m here, but now I want to go.’ When I was young, I always made excuses. But now I say, ‘I don’t feel comfortable anymore, and I want to go home,’ and everyone says, ‘Okay. That’s okay!’ and now I feel really seen.

That’s amazing! Just saying what I think or feel is way better. I was known for the “French exit,” just leaving without telling anybody. But what you’re doing is super powerful because it shows that it’s okay to feel how you feel, and you shouldn’t be ashamed of it.

Their response was only positive, so I thought, This isn’t so bad!

What do you think being from Amsterdam has given you as an artist?

I’m really in love with Amsterdam. Because I’m a loner, Amsterdam is more like a big village with beautiful people. It’s small; you can walk from one side to the other side. That, I already love. I can walk everywhere with Balou [my dog], and I don’t have to take the subway or anything. I don’t want to live in the countryside because, especially as a loner, I feel super comfortable in the city. Even when I wear my pyjamas to the supermarket, no one looks at you weirdly. It’s a city where you can express yourself a lot.

When I walk from my home to my studio, it’s a half hour walk, and I just wander on my own. People come by. I think a lot of people notice you and give you a nod. I really like that; you acknowledge each other with a nod or a smile. The city gives me a lot of energy. Even when I like to go through it on my own, I feel the energy of the people in a different way. I also really appreciate the female connections. You look at each other, and when I see a beautiful woman, I’ll say what I see out loud to them and appreciate them. Little things like that can make someone’s day.



Did you dance at all when you were younger?

I danced from four till when I was seventeen. I was super quiet, but when I danced I had so much expression. I did ballet, and in our class for the last ten minutes you could dance freely, and I went crazy. The teacher saw that and said, ‘We need to put her in a more explosive kind of dance.’ I felt so comfortable as a kid when I danced. I was in a different world, and everybody thought I was strange because I was so quiet, but I moved like I was so comfortable. But I didn’t care because it was mine.

You can express through dancing. It’s another language, just like art.

For me, it’s more natural to express by dance or by my body and with feeling rather than with words.

That relates to the visual way in which you learn as well.

The teacher saw it too. And when a few people see things, they give you the confidence to do [that]. You need those people, to have them around you. I always felt my intuition was super strong, so I’d just go for it.

Often these people see something in you that you can’t see in yourself; you need them to show you. I love that you paint in your studio with the energy of little ballet dancers around you.

Yes, and it still has all the barres and mirrors. And every day I still dance a little. It reminds me—me manifesting the ballet studio—that if you really believe in things, you can make them happen. That’s why I try to seek things within myself, not externally, because I can create my own narrative. I can’t put it in someone else’s hands because then I don’t have the control over it.

You have such a particular palette with the colours in your paintings. My favourite is of the two women who are in these beautiful bright colours; you can feel that colour. How do you come to your colours?

Most of my outcomes are defined by the use of colour. They speak out the truth that sometimes can only be felt, even though I don’t always understand it. It’s almost like I don’t have words for it, but it’s a feeling, or emotions combined together.

I think that’s what I felt. I can’t even articulate it, and it might not be the same emotion as what you felt painting them, but when I saw the colours, I did have a physical, emotional reaction to them. I think it’s quite amazing how it translates.

I don’t even think it’s relevant what my emotion is in the paintings. I think you’re always attracted to something that you recognise yourself in. I really don’t explain my paintings often to people because they have their own stories, which they tell me, about what they see. I sometimes want to write them down because I think, That’s beautiful. I make something, and you give something to me that’s valuable. Sometimes they’re heavy, intense stories, and I want to take notes of what people feel when they view those paintings.

That would be such a wonderful book to read, the painting with people’s stories of how they respond underneath it. Because that’s what fascinates me about art: how people project their own story onto artworks. Maybe because you’ve painted that vulnerability into the faces of your figures, people respond to that.

I also feel really seen. They see the nakedness of my emotion in it, and they feel the freedom to do the same thing. Then you have a real human connection instead of talking about how the weather is. The connection is deep, even when you don’t know each other.

I love that your paintings give you so much back. If you have that, then you’re never going to stop painting.

I’m not sure what it is, but sometimes I have difficulty in letting go of my paintings. I think it’s because I put emotion into them, I want to keep them with me. They keep me company in my empty space where I’m alone. It’s like having people around me. I feel quite sad when they’re leaving.

I can also understand that. When I write drafts of stories, I don’t want to finish them or hand them in because it feels like home. What will I do without my characters?

It’s become a part of you.



You have such a deep relationship with your characters, but it’s also exciting to think that if they do go into another home, I can imagine they’d have a deep relationship with their new owner too.

I also think it’s a nice idea that pieces of me are moving around the world when I’m here in my own bubble. I’m putting a piece of me over there and a piece of me over here. And what are they doing? They have all these different lives now!

Your paintings must see all sorts of things within people’s homes. If the characters could come back to you, they’d tell you the secrets they’ve learnt. I love that idea.

I remember a story that you saw a calligraphy brush in a market in Hong Kong, and you saw it as a sign to prompt you to start painting. Do you have another talisman that’s important to you?

I was cleaning up my house and I found this drawing that I did when I was seven. It’s like a Modigliani painting. I thought, This is something that I really love to do. I was searching for a long time, after photography, to do something on my own, but I couldn’t figure out what it was, so these things were important to open my eyes—that kind of childlike curiosity or things that you love as a kid when you don’t think about whether other people think it’s good enough; you just love to do something you love to do. When I was going to high school, as an argument I would say, ‘I do it because I like to do it,’ [and] people would say, ‘No. You have to give a better argument for doing it.’

Now that I’m older, I think doing something because you really love to do it is the most beautiful argument there is.

It’s so funny, I found little books I had written when I was a kid too— pieces of paper stapled together. It’s like we always knew what we wanted to do but lost it along the way. How do you think your artworks have evolved? Do you think they have in any way?

That’s also an anxiety of mine. I want to develop. That’s the only pressure I feel. I don’t want to make the same things, so I don’t do commissions. I don’t make another version of the same painting because I want to evolve. I think the colours change; that has to do with the seasons, but it’s also about where I’m at. I also did some monochrome paintings because everybody was saying, ‘Your colours are so beautiful!’ and I was curious to see what would happen if I skipped colours. I loved the paintings, but I also discovered that the colours have an emotional depth that it isn’t always clear what it is. It’s not a distraction; it adds to it. It’s an important part of the painting for me.

I’ve been trying to paint more loosely. I hope to evolve in a childish way. The fingers are a good example. They don’t look like real fingers but more like branches. I really like that; it gives it more of a fantasy element. The emotions speak out more, so I hope to make my paintings more abstract as I evolve.

You’re right, because when we’re younger, we don’t think as much about proportion. We are drawing from and for emotion as opposed to drawing to make it realistic.

There’s a beautiful TED Talk about how schools kill creativity by Sir Ken Robinson, and I think that’s spot on. You’re conditioned to see in a way that grown-ups expect you to see things. That’s so sad because it totally kills creativity.

Maybe that’s why it took us so long to go back to that childhood desire: for you, drawing, and for me, writing stories. We became layered with adulthood and forgot to go back to that original thing that we loved doing.

I think a lot of big painters have found their inner child. They’re like big kids because they’ve found their inner freedom to explore it and not think about what other people think.

With your faces, they have this beautiful geometry to them, and I was wondering if that was more of an aesthetic idea or more because of a concept that you were trying to realise?

I work intuitively; it just happens that way. The face actually remains a little bit the same through each of the paintings, so I’m also curious how that’s going to change eventually. That’s something I don’t want to think too much about. A lot of accidents happen, which I find interesting and go with. I’m not usually frustrated with my paintings because I don’t have an idea of what they should look like; I just go with it. The more layers, the more life that’s in it. It’s a gift when something happens that isn’t intentional.