The first confrontation with the work of Dorrit Klomp gives the idea that one can talk about a certain inner dividedness.

The first confrontation with the work of Dorrit Klomp gives the idea that one can talk about a certain inner dividedness. How can someone paint the rather romantic landscapes in pastel-technique as well as making in the same time paintings with those sometimes-crude female characters with an important quantity of aggression and erotically charge. This was especially visible in her so-called "red period". A time in witch among other things the painting "the Boot" came into being, the open zipped red boot with the meanly sharp pointed heel. In the pastel led landscapes there is nothing to be seen of that aggression. It seems as if it is for her handling about the pure pleasure of painting, but in the pastels the natural talent of Dorrit is really visible.

A natural talent that is manifesting itself in the spontaneity of the stroke of brush witch is also characterizing the paintings.
In the later paintings of Dorrit aggression seems to have made room for a more balanced image of woman, a more positive image. More a woman for whom it is a lust to live, no victim, no fighter against windmills, but a woman who is conscious of her sexuality as a force.
Wondering about Dorrit painting woman, in the history of art the men were always painting woman. And since the research of Bettina Spaanstra Polak about archetypes in the symbolic art of painting, we know why the mysteriousness of the smile of "Mona Lisa" is so much esteemed by a larger public. Moreover we know the enigmatic sphinxes, the Salome's , the Eva's. All of them types of woman , who with their erotic seductiveness have to represent the "femme fatale", the destruction of the poor man. This image of women always was the argument to keep woman below perpetually.
Why did Dorrit not paint men as an object of art, Dorrit is - in that sense- not so much interested in men. For her it is handling much more about her own story, by witch she is searching a new meaning of well-known archetypes. Thereby it is an advantage that Dorrit does not have the burden of a Roman Catholic past.
To be obliged to satisfy to a sexless obedient Maria-model, should probably deprived her of the delight to occupy her with this figure. Dorrit is seeing very many other aspects at the figure of Maria.

Text Drs. Christine van Stralen 2001