My country of origin, The Netherlands, is famous for two things: polders a.k.a. reclaimed land, and fields of tulips. As unbelievable as this may sound to you, I only visited the tulip fields for the first time in 2023. It was quite the experience and I have many photographs remembering the occasion.
What struck me during my visit was that, in many of the single-coloured fields, there was always (and I mean: ALWAYS) one flower of a different colour! Usually it was another tulip. But sometimes it was also a dandelion. It looked to me as if that different flower was showing proud defiance. To break up the sea of colour with a single splash of something else: I found it quite funny!
And some years after my visit in 2023 I decided to dedicate a painting to ‘the defiant tulip’. A single yellow flower in a sea of red… I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
And as a by the way: when I was part of the Elgin County Studio Tour in September 2025, this painting was the subject of a challenge for the people visiting my studio. I dared them to guess the total number of tulips in it. Many visitors participated, but only 2 of them got very close and 1 won an art print of a painting of mine of their choice. The total number of tulips was…. 371!
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