Warning: include(../press/Olaf Van Cleef paints like the jeweller that he is. A scion of the Van Cleef family and counsellor to Cartier on high jewellery since 1982, the jeweller’s touch is overt in the 59 paintings currently on display at the Gallery La Mére in Kolkata, especially in his use of embellishments like Swarovski crystals and gold-paper. <p>But there’s something about the dense and minute perfection of his works — the little dots in white goauche which pack every inch of his works, the precise lines in brown antique ink, the mosaic of colours (bits of glitter paper cut into various shapes and stuck on to the paper) — that is jeweller-like. No wonder the collection is called “Jewelled Touch”. <p>Of course, decoration is only one reason why Olaf uses crystals. “They help focus attention,” he says pointing to a painting (unnamed, liked all his work) of two women celebrating Diwali. Of the two, one has her back to the viewer, her ample figure and her subservience manifest through the lines of her in /home/olafvancleef/olafvancleef.org/archives/index.php on line 162

Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening '../press/Olaf Van Cleef paints like the jeweller that he is. A scion of the Van Cleef family and counsellor to Cartier on high jewellery since 1982, the jeweller’s touch is overt in the 59 paintings currently on display at the Gallery La Mére in Kolkata, especially in his use of embellishments like Swarovski crystals and gold-paper. <p>But there’s something about the dense and minute perfection of his works — the little dots in white goauche which pack every inch of his works, the precise lines in brown antique ink, the mosaic of colours (bits of glitter paper cut into various shapes and stuck on to the paper) — that is jeweller-like. No wonder the collection is called “Jewelled Touch”. <p>Of course, decoration is only one reason why Olaf uses crystals. “They help focus attention,” he says pointing to a painting (unnamed, liked all his work) of two women celebrating Diwali. Of the two, one has her back to the viewer, he in /home/olafvancleef/olafvancleef.org/archives/index.php on line 162