About me:
I was fortunate to be born and raised in a place we call the 'Eilandspolder' in the Netherlands. Surrounded by an abundance of pastures, tall grass, the birds and hares that flock to them, and the intricate network of creeks and waterways that is unique to Holland. There is a stillness to these regions that allows one to really drink in the colours and sounds. I am not as committed to painting their literal image as our highly respected masters used to, but I do like to walk through the landscape and takes pieces of it home for my own reflections.
A small ode to them is to be found in the 'northern end' series of Photographs.
Creativity and the visual has always been deeply embedded in me. My father as well as my grandfather are both extraordinarily skilled in artistic as well as technical crafts. They have generously taught me from a young age, and are largely responsible for the versatility and eagerness I maintain within my own crafts. I don't remember a point in my life where painting and crafting wasn't a key element to my life, and it must be said that I have them to thank for it.
It is my passion to learn and improve. I strive to always go that little bit further. To look at something I've made or done and think 'this is good. now how do I make this better."
This compulsion to pass my own boundaries is a useful trait in that respect. It has also caused me to take me a long time to set up my art as a business, as I had very specific criteria that I felt needed to be met before I did so. By now I've met enough of them to have a solid foundation to build on.
I have tried & tested different approaches to selling my art, I've pocketed my propaedeutic year at Breitner academy
(with the intent of continuing in the future although not top of my list right now),
through which I've learned and taught (with great delight) at highschools, as well as giving individual/group workshops for a.o. HVO Querido/outsider art, my art is appreciated and bought by a supportive and expanding group of people, and lastly (possibly most important to me and my inner critic); I have acquired the skills to produce art that is formalistically and conceptually interesting, consistently.
This is all good, now how do I make this better..
My art
To describe my art, I have to start out with describing what it does for me personally.
So, I will do my best to translate that image as accurately as I can, within the bounds of the attention span I can realistically ask for on a website.
(Which is about 30 to 1,250 words, according to the internet.)
The purpose of creating an artwork for me essentially lies in the exploration of a surface.
It is comparable to walking through an invisible landscape that slowly becomes visible.
It starts out with nothing, a flat white desert. But then you take a step and a tree appears, and then a rock, and then paths start to form and you need to make choices; do I go left or right? how do I cross this river, or manoeuvre this trail? what if I try this brush?..
The artwork becomes an interaction between me and my work that requires me to approach it in an almost interpersonal way. ‘We’ have to work together. It requires me to trust that the process is there, that the trees will appear, and that it will challenge me to solve its puzzles.
And even though the outcome isn’t always what I’d hoped for, I can definitely trust it to be there. It’s decidedly the most reliable thing in my life.
When I visit a gallery, pieces that require an above average amount of academic knowledge to appreciate tend to irk me a little. Not out of rebellion, but because I know the range of works that I could and couldn't appreciate before going through art school myself. There's a certain discourse around art that can stand like a brick wall between enjoyment and the viewer.
For this reason, I don't want the viewer of my own pieces to have to work harder on my paintings than I did making them. But I do want to give them enough material to be able to choose to. I want the viewer to be able to toy and interact with the work freely and indefinitely if they want to. I want to offer a piece of that explorative joy, and I want my paintings to be approachable. Ideally, I want them to be inviting. So that the mystery and innovation of contemporary art can present without being hindered by that wall.