Living for the art in the face of death

Peter Bannink
Jul 28, 2017 · 6 min read

Meeting him in person at first is like a walking warning for a life of unprotected sex with prostitutes. But there’s more than that. Peter Klashorst is an intellectual, an artist, someone who lives for the art. Someone who knows what it is going on in the world, knows the history and cultural sensitivities of the places where he lives and lived. He takes responsibility for the five children he has with a variety of mothers — passports and alimony at least. Peter lives with an intensity that not many would have survived for so long. Two to three bottles of Red Label per day, along with four or five ‘models,’ a maximum of one meal a deal while painting around the clock. His production has been immense. He has worked from Phomh Penh for the last eight years, but also has an atelier in Bangkok and up until two years ago he had the Spuistraat atelier in Amsterdam — a place he had to leave recently. The new owner of the building did not accept the 31-year tenancy agreement of one painting a month. The judge gave in to the new owner and Peter had to leave. Africa is his other passion — also the sex is better there.

We hang out for three days, mostly in his hotel room and some restaurants. He moved out of the atelier where temperatures rose to around 45 degrees, which makes it impossible for him to be here anymore. The place has some fans, but without glass in the windows and a proper way to have the heat gone from the ceiling it just gets insanely hot.

Together we visit the laboratory for the test results of the virology test, for his HIV. He contracted the disease around five years but with ups and downs he has managed to continue his intense lifestyle. Two months ago an aids attack, as he calls it, struck him and got him down. He lost more than twenty kilograms, from 70 to under 50. As he has no insurance, he practices self-medication. He does his own research and found pills he think work to control the disease. Because of his immense loss of weight, and his absent appetite, we went together to the body building store to buy a protein in powder form. The lady in the store inquired about his workout schedule, which was a major uptake — apparently it didn’t look that bad. Using the weighing scale showed he gained a couple of kilograms since last time. Together with the lower viral values of the HIV test, it was a good day — hopeful. Peter plays with thought he will look like Arnold Schwarznegger in around ten days, as is confirmed by the store staff.

We have lunch, he eats some sashimi and we talk. We reminisce about some stories I know from our mutual friend and what I know from his biography. We talk about music, about the atelier in Amsterdam, about love and relationships. The current situation forces Peter to practice patience, I ask him about this. He is impatient. Although his income from the art, mostly commissioned portraits and works he sells on Facebook, has been steadily around 10–15K EUR a month, which is not bad given the affordable living conditions in Phnom Penh, he generally lives above his wealth. As an artist he feels he is required to, he needs the intensity for the art.

I like that about him, and feel I can or like to relate.

We talk more. About the early days, the relationships with Ellen ten Damme and Katja Schuurman, famous Dutch actresses and singers. About how they did not want to associated with him due to his reputation, but still couldn’t resist him because of his talent, charme and exuberant lifestyle. He couldn’t promise exclusivity.

He already looks better than then we first time we met. He thinks it’s because I’m used to it. Maybe that is the case, but he has a bit more spark in his eyes. Today I meet his daughter, Elisabeth, she is fifteen years old and her mom is Kenyan and currently imprisoned in Nairobi. He says only slept with her mom two or three times and she has around seven children with all other men. One of the reasons Peter left Africa was because of women like her; she would hide drugs under his bed and call the police — the both parties would take a cut of the amount Peter had to pay to bail out. Or she would have a doctor call him saying the child is sick and needs money to be transferred now.

Elisabeth lived in a host family in Switzerland for three years and was going to the gymnasium. She told Peter she wasn’t happy and in an act of love, romanticism and naivety, he took her with him to Cambodia. He rented an apartment for her where she only stayed for two days. Street-smart as she is, she integrated in the Riverside community of Phnom Penh within a few days. I meet her at Peter’s hotel where she mostly comes to collect her pocket money. She is with her friend, a local girl and mostly stays at friends’ houses. She wants to be become a doctor and understands she will have to go back to school eventually. Peter underestimated how it would be to enroll her in an international school in Cambodia, costing around 30K EUR per year. Living in a hotel is costing him around 1000 EUR a week now and because of his illness; there is no production or income — although there is a large pile of unsorted rolls and framed work in his atelier.

Peter wants to go to Holland, Germany would be even better, and settle down as a houseman — or anything that will help him heal. He has another daughter that lives with her mom there. Having deregistered from Holland complicates the fact that he gets the healthcare he should be entitled to. When I have already left Cambodia, he writes me on Facebook. He is hospitalized and in the isolated area of the intensive care and has TBC. It explains his excessive weight loss, his lack of appetite, the coughing and the sweating at night. A few days later he sends a Facebook message into the world announcing both his AIDS and TBC.

I think back of our time in the tuktuk, driving around and chatting about the best places in the world to live. Peter loves Germany, sees it as a place that truly learned from its history, and sets an example of how to cope with the current refugee crisis. Because of his poor condition, he is ready to move there and have a quiet life. Maybe buy a horse — he loves to play polo, walk in the forests and read some books. Last time he tried the civilized way of life, right before he came to Cambodia three months ago, he lived with his mom in Haarlem for a month. In the first three weeks back in Phnom Penh he spend his saved cash in bars, booze and on models in the way he used to live — seemingly to make up for lost time. Feeling already better and more alive, he no longer felt it was needed to take his AIDS inhibitors. Peter has a big heart, lives for the art, but is stubborn and not naturally wired for a world that sometimes demands organization and bureaucratic responsibilities.

Phnom Penh, July 2017

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