Avonturier in de Braziliaanse jungle, schipbreukeling op een onbewoond eiland, beroemde schaker of tennisheld. Het zijn slechts enkele alter ego’s waarmee Rinus van de Velde (Leuven, 1983) zichzelf vereenzelvigt. In zijn thuisland België heeft hij inmiddels de status van Bekende Vlaming bereikt, beroemd om zijn indrukwekkende levensgrote houtskooltekeningen op canvas van een foto-realistische kwaliteit.
(bron: Gemeentemuseum Den Haag)
“As a teenager, he was considered to be one of the most prodigial tennis players of his generation. In his early twenties, when he was already known to be the ‘enfant terrible of American college tennis’, he injured himself in a fit of anger during a training match, which ended his career prematurely.”
‘There is a code to solve it, Conrad, and I happen to know it by heart: 1) Fi U Li Ui / 2) Ri Di R D / 3) Ui Li U L U F Ui Fi / 4) U R Ui Ri Ui Fi U F / 5) F R U Ri Ui Fi / 6) R U Ri U R U U Ri / 7) U R Ui Li U Ri Ui L / 8) Ri Di R D’, I once told him over dinner. But he didn’t seem to be impressed at all, and just muttered: ‘I know you are the master of the game, but stop fiddling around with that thing. It makes me bloody nervous.’ I hadn’t even noticed I had taken it out of my pocket again.
