THE GAME OF GO
The game of go, also known as weiqi (圍棋) in China, baduk (바둑) in Korea and igo (囲碁) in Japan, is a big part of my life.
I started playing in 2004 and quickly became hooked. It is amazing how something as small as a board game can have such an impact on your life: I have traveled the world because of go, I have had jobs because of go and I know my girlfriend because of go. Go has also inspired my art and gave me the pseudonym Murugandi.
I started playing in 2004 and quickly became hooked. It is amazing how something as small as a board game can have such an impact on your life: I have traveled the world because of go, I have had jobs because of go and I know my girlfriend because of go. Go has also inspired my art and gave me the pseudonym Murugandi.
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WHAT IS GO?Go is a strategic board game estimated to be 4000 years old. The oldest traces of go point to China as its birth place.
The game is played on a board with lines that cross each other diagonally (there are three versions: a 9x9 board, a 13x13 board and a 19x19 board, the latter being used for official matches). Two players take turns placing black and white stones on the intersections of the lines. By doing so they divide the board in an attempt to surround more territory than the opponent. Go has a small set of rules that implicates a seemingly endless depth of possibilities. 
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MY INVOLVEMENT IN THE GO WORLD
As time passed I played more and more go, went to tournaments in Europe and Asia and became better at the game.
In 2010 I studied go in Wuhan, China, for three months under professional go player Yan An 7p. After I came back, I quickly reached my current level of 4 dan and became a member of the Dutch team for the Pandanet European Go Team Championships.
I started making go commentary videos in English for EuroGoTV with Harry Weerheijm and this became a well watched series of videos on YouTube. In 2012 I started BadukMovies with Peter Brouwer, a website for which we made a total of 212 tutorial videos, a new video every week until July 2015. Around the same time I was an employee in Chess and Go shop Het Paard, one of the biggest go shops in Europe. In 2016 I started writing news articles for the European Go Federation and in 2017 I compiled and wrote the 2016 European Go Yearbook, 576 pages about the biggest and most important go happenings of 2016 in Europe. In 2017 I started working at the European Go Cultural Centre in Amstelveen, one of the overseas go centres of the Nihon Ki-in (Japanese Go Association), where I organised international go tournaments and symposia until the centre closed down in January 2020.
I have been teaching go since 2010, both online and offline. If you are interested in taking lessons, please send me a message.
You can read an interview with me by the European Go Federation here, about the 2016 European Go Yearbook and my experiences during the writing process of the book.
In 2010 I studied go in Wuhan, China, for three months under professional go player Yan An 7p. After I came back, I quickly reached my current level of 4 dan and became a member of the Dutch team for the Pandanet European Go Team Championships.
I started making go commentary videos in English for EuroGoTV with Harry Weerheijm and this became a well watched series of videos on YouTube. In 2012 I started BadukMovies with Peter Brouwer, a website for which we made a total of 212 tutorial videos, a new video every week until July 2015. Around the same time I was an employee in Chess and Go shop Het Paard, one of the biggest go shops in Europe. In 2016 I started writing news articles for the European Go Federation and in 2017 I compiled and wrote the 2016 European Go Yearbook, 576 pages about the biggest and most important go happenings of 2016 in Europe. In 2017 I started working at the European Go Cultural Centre in Amstelveen, one of the overseas go centres of the Nihon Ki-in (Japanese Go Association), where I organised international go tournaments and symposia until the centre closed down in January 2020.
I have been teaching go since 2010, both online and offline. If you are interested in taking lessons, please send me a message.
You can read an interview with me by the European Go Federation here, about the 2016 European Go Yearbook and my experiences during the writing process of the book.
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GO ART
Over the years I have made lots of art that is go inspired. Some of it I made for myself, because I was motivated by go terms or shapes, but most of it is commissioned work. I am really grateful to the go community, a tight knit community of enthusiasts who share their passion for the game, sport or art called go.
My art has been used in tournaments as prizes, has been hung in go schools, used for logos of go associations, printed on the covers of go books and so much more.
Below I listed the art with short descriptions. If you want to know more about the context and background of these works, have a read on the go-category of my blog.
Want to support me? All of these artworks are available in my Etsy shop as posters and postcards. If you want me to make a go inspired logo, drawing, banner, thumbnail, you name it, please send me a message or leave a comment on my blog.
My art has been used in tournaments as prizes, has been hung in go schools, used for logos of go associations, printed on the covers of go books and so much more.
Below I listed the art with short descriptions. If you want to know more about the context and background of these works, have a read on the go-category of my blog.
Want to support me? All of these artworks are available in my Etsy shop as posters and postcards. If you want me to make a go inspired logo, drawing, banner, thumbnail, you name it, please send me a message or leave a comment on my blog.
COMMISSIONED WORK
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The Dutch Go Association (NGoB) asked me to make a series of six black and white portraits for "De Kunst van Go" (The Art of Go), a beginners-book they published in October 2020. The portraits are accompanied by short stories about the individuals. Some of them are fictional characters and some are real people. The pictures and stories take you through the ages of go players.
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Created for the 3rd Latin American Go Congress that took place from 10-13 October 2019 in the Nihon Ki-in da América do Sul in São Paulo. I printed and shipped 1000 postcards to Brazil for the occasion.
The toucan, a bird species indigenous to large parts of South America, is taking the place of legendary go player Honinbo Shusaku. The go match in the artwork is one of the most famous go matches ever played, known as "The Ear Reddening Game". The match is at its most vital stage and the toucan is about to play a move that went down in history. Reportedly, when Shusaku played move 127, it mentally shook his opponent, Gennan Inseki, so much so that his ears turned red. |
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I have created covers for the yearbooks of the Dutch Go Association (Nederlandse Go Bond) since the 2014-2015 edition. My artwork is also on the cover of two editions of the Deutsche Go-Zeitung (volume 1 of 2015 and volume 2 of 2019).
More information on these designs can be found below. |
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Christmas design for the American Go Association, created in winter 2017. The drawing shows a 6x6 whole-board seki. Seki (セキ) is the Japanese term for a local stalemate position of 'shared life' in which neither player can approach the other's stones. If either player would try to capture the other, he would end up being captured himself. This artwork illustrates the idea that go players share their lives on the go board.
The black and white version of this design was printed on Christmas cards that were sent out to AGA members in winter 2018. |
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Logo for the annual Amsterdam International Go Tournament, created in 2016. Commissioned by the European Go Cultural Centre and the Nederlandse Go Bond. The design shows two typical Dutch/Amsterdam visual elements: a tulip and a canal house.
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Logo for the European Youth Go Championships in Zandvoort in 2015. The patterns on the wings of the butterfly show several tesuji shapes, such as the crane's nest and a snapback.
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Flyer design for the 44th Amsterdam International Go Tournament in 2015. The triple X is a visual icon of the city of Amsterdam, part of the local weapon of arms. The colours of black and red are also inspired by the flag of Amsterdam.
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For BadukTV, a Korean television channel that broadcasts the game of go 24 hours a day, I made a series of 10 animal illustrations in 2015. The go boards were to be specific shapes: 9x6, 13x13, 9x13, 9x9, 5x5, 13x13, 13x9 and 9x5. The plan for these drawings was to use them on promotional material for kids in Korea. BadukTV requested empty go boards, because they planned on filling them with go shapes themselves.
Three of these ten drawings were alterations of artwork I had made in the past: the turtle, the swordfish and the raccoon dog. The other seven drawings were made specifically for this project. Unfortunately this project was left on the shelf by BadukTV and the rights for the usage of the drawings came back to me. |
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Logo for the Amsterdam Go Club, created in 2014. The triple X is a visual icon of the city of Amsterdam, part of the local coat of arms. The colours of black and red are also inspired by the flag of Amsterdam.
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UNCOMMISSIONED WORK
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"Full Moon Fox", created together with my girlfriend Justyna in May 2020, shortly after my go playing cat. 13,2 x 25,2 cm,
watercolour and ink on paper. Has found a new home with go collector Theo van Ees. |
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A go playing cat, created in May 2020. Titled "Sniffing the Third Line" by suggestion on Facebook. I drew this for a giveaway on social media to celebrate having almost 800 likes on my Facebook page and because I wanted to do something to lighten the mood during the Covid-19 crisis. Anybody had a chance to participate in the raffle by commenting on the post on my Facebook and Instagram pages. The original, made with watercolour and white background, was randomly won by Maja Brouwer.
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Made in February 2020. This go design incorporates a fascinating 9x9 endgame problem that I found on the social media of BIBA (Blackie's International Baduk Academy), a go school in Seoul. The head masters of the school, Diana Koszegi and Seungjun Kim, kindly gave me permission to use their go problem in my art.
Want to know the solution? You can download the sgf-file here. |
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"Tsumego: black to play and live" - The ring tailed lemur walks by unimpressed. Above him we see a remarkable life and death problem. Made in December 2019.
Have a look here if you want to know the solution. |
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Banner for the Facebook page of children's go club De Vlinder ("The Butterfly").
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Titled "The Raccoon Dog Drums His Belly".
This artwork and its title refer to a beautiful tesuji combination of two stones played on the first line, capturing the opponent's stones. In Japanese this is called タヌキの腹鼓 (tanuki no hara tsuzumi). |
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Titled "Fighting Spirit".
Kiai! Originally an uncommissioned illustration to the French book "Les Chants de Maldoror" written by Le Comte de Lautréamont (1868). One of my favorite books. In the book the main character Maldoror takes on the form of a giant eagle to fight God, who is half dragon-tiger, half serpent. The board position is from a game from the 18th century between legendary go player Fan Xiping (black) and Liang Weijin (white), known as "nailing down the guoshou title". |
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Titled "The Divine Move".
The elephant is admiring Lee Sedol's famous move 78 that made AlphaGo go on tilt in game four of their best of five match in 2016. Lee Sedol lost the overall match to the computer program by 4 to 1 games, making AlphaGo the first computer to defeat a top level professional in the history of go. This wedging move by Sedol resulted in the only victory in the matchup for the Korean and became a symbolic victory of human capability. |
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Titled "Shoulder Hit on the Fifth Line".
These penguins are witnessing move 37 played by computer program AlphaGo in game 2 against Lee Sedol. Shoulder hits are often played on the fourth line, sometimes on the third line, but rarely on the fifth. At the time of play, many professionals regarded this move as a clear mistake by the computer. Once the game progressed, however, the move turned out to be brilliant, creating a sphere of influence towards the centre of the board. |
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Titled "Move 37".
An atmospheric close-up of AlphaGo's innovative shoulder hit, a move that announced new chapters in artificial intelligence and go theory. |
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Titled "The Tortoise Shell". A pun on the name for one of the strongest shapes in go called 亀の甲 (the tortoise shell) in Japanese. A giant ponnuki of sorts. A tortoise shell on a tortoise shell! The Tortoise Shell mug is for sale at Schaak & Go winkel Het Paard.
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A 6x6 whole-board seki that I came up with when I was making a Christmas design for the American Go Association.
For this design I was inspired by Japanese puzzle boxes that are made in Hakone and their abstract wood patterns. This is a concept drawing for a puzzle box that includes a go pattern. How cool would it be if you had to figure out or solve a go position before you could open a puzzle box? Seki (セキ) is the Japanese term for a local stalemate position of 'shared life' in which neither player can approach the other's stones. If either player would try to capture the other, he would end up being captured himself. |
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Atari! Go can be a harsh game sometimes.
This is one of my oldest go drawings, probably from around 2006-2008. The colouring was done many years later. |
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Early black and white versions of drawings that were coloured at a later stage.
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