Curtiz - Those Happy People II

“Those Happy People II” by Curtiz (Kris De Meester) is a striking mixed media work—acrylic, ecoline, and marker on aluminium—measuring 60 x 90 cm. The piece juxtaposes a sense of childlike innocence with an unsettling surrealism: three schoolgirls in uniform float between towering, vividly colored city buildings. The palette—dominated by sharp pinks, reds, and blues—evokes both playfulness and artificiality, transforming the urban canyon into a dreamlike stage. The girls’ identical postures and faceless anonymity hint at conformity and detachment beneath the cheerful surface, echoing the title’s irony. Executed on aluminium, the painting’s reflective base adds a subtle sheen, intensifying its tension between lightness and gravity, fantasy and alienation. “Those Happy People II” captures De Meester’s recurring exploration of human fragility within modernity’s constructed environments—a poetic, quietly haunting image of innocence suspended in the void of contemporary life.