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theoretical backgrounds

Dear visitor,

After two art educations (AKI, Enschede and Rijksacadamy of fine arts in Amsterdam), I developed an interest in anthroposophy. I try to unite the best parts of these two worlds. My work is idealistic and surrealistic - it is about ideas, but it is not conceptual. My goal is: concrete visual experience. I try to picture atmosphere and depict experiences or inner states of being. I'm interested in establishing things that are 'natural' yet human, and believe that an artwork should contain some form of life. It should have a positive influence on one’s daily environment.

To me, painting is not just about paint, it is about image, and the way an image comes into being (that is: by laws of colour, form, perspective etc.). I started out as a multi-media artist and worked with photography before I started to paint. Painting to me is an active form of photography.
I work with different materials and techniques, but working with colour processes is on itself immaterial. One can do this in watercolour, oilpaint, textile, but also by singing or sculpting. Working with colour and working with paint are two different worlds, that can be brought together in the craft of painting.

Apart from working with materials and techniques (materials, camera, computer) I work with my body as a perceptive organism. We perceive much more than we think, not only matter is an objective reality. The way one’s perception takes on shape is a given process, an activity which one can learn to registrate.
Doing so, you can find out about who you are, and about the way you interact with your environment. Photography can be a tool to capture the given part of perception - painters used tools like this since the 15th century. Johannes Vermeer (17th century) even used a primitive camera (a box with lenses).
The active part of our perception can be captured in the abstract aspects of painting. This part of perception is actually a form of intelligence that is physical – the intelligence of a soccer-player. One sometimes sees it in really good graffiti. Form, colour, sound and movement can become a vehicle for individual expression. I guess that was the original goal of abstract expressionism. I don’t believe in the absolute power of creative eruption though - this is only the male side of the creative process. The female side is more technical: how to actually get it done. Using all the laws and tools available to construct a painting, and interact with these laws. These laws went out of use, because artists thought they hindered their personal expression. But people like Picasso and Mondrian did have an oldfashioned training, before they went abstract. In my opinion, the real craft of an artist is, to master the usual craft, and still be able to create a unique artwork.

I sell my work as unique works, but also as reproductions. Some works I reproduce myself (when they are sold, I make them again). It's a way to commercialise things and keep the price down, but also a way of approaching art: posessing an artwork does not mean: exclusive posession of a content. Themes can be done again. The theme as such then evolves.

Part of my work is theoretical: theory of colour, art and science, art history). By working with anthroposophical concepts, art and science become strongly intertwined. Science then can become a form of art, and art becomes a form of science (even when it's an unusal form).
One does research by trying to pose the right question, and create or receive the answer to the specific question. Art is maybe the best way to create knowledge. The head helps out by studying different art-doctrines, and by formulating hypotheses to work with. In terms of inner development, creative processes (in all kinds of professions) have my continual interest

I also like to teach. Click here for workshops