Autonomous artist · since 1987
“I express my life in colour.”
It is difficult to write about something that goes so deep I can hardly find the words for it. The work has no other purpose than to touch the soul. You could compare it to composing: the muse does her work, the composer feels and translates, the listener receives and either allows it or not.
The painting begins with a dark colour in the bottom-left corner, worked diagonally upward. I once called that diagonal the spine.
From it, colour and story emerge. The diagonal has been present in every painting for thirty-seven years. Through it runs the lifeblood, where the muse manifests herself. The work has evolved, developed further, abstracted. The spine has remained.
Practice
Acrylic on linen canvas, stretched over an aluminium and wood frame so it will not warp in humid rooms. The canvases are often large, layered and multi-dimensional. While you look, the work moves, like a kaleidoscope.
The work cannot be copied, not even by me, because of the small segments that flow into one another. Up close you find buildings, faces, people, animals, elements, planets. As you step back, larger forms appear. From further still, everything merges into a whole.
Children rarely walk past a painting. They sit down in front of it and tell you eagerly what they see.
Formation
Registered with an open studio in Veldhoven in 1987. Eight years of lessons with Hanneke van de Zanden, qualified to teach at academic level. Workshops, nude studies in the attic of an art academy in Eindhoven, and six years of sculpture with Henk Oddens at Bokt.
Travel has been the other teacher: Mongolia, China, Malaysia, Russia, Central and Southern Africa, much of Europe, America, and many islands.
Selected exhibitions & projects
- 1994Hotel Campanile, Veldhoven · solo
- 1994Municipality of Valkenswaard, Liberation Day project
- 1996The Old Town Hall, Eersel · Art at the Market, solo
- 1997Galerie de Kei, Nuenen · group
- 2001–04Galerie Persoon · permanent artist
- 2003Holland Art Gallery, The Hague · permanent artist
- 2003Dutch Collection, Chelsea, London · group
- 2003Sculpture Exhibition, Surrey · group
- 2003Galerie S’Gravenswaard, Zoelen · solo
- 2004Holland Art Gallery · solo, with book presentation
- 2006Agora Gallery, Chelsea, New York · solo within a group exhibition
- 2006Galerie Babylon, Samara, Russia · solo, with press conference
- 2007S.P.A.S. Gallery, St Petersburg · solo
- 2007Workshop for Tommy van der Leegte, PSV Stadium, Eindhoven
- 2007Pantereus Foundation auction for WWF, Crossmoor Weert · commission
- 2009Trevisart, Ferrara · group, awarded best artist in genre
- 2011Social Sofa for the residents of Veldhoven · commission
- n.d.Entrepôt du Congo, St. Jansvliet, Antwerp · own studio, solo
- n.d.Swim for Tim ALS Foundation, Amsterdam · gala auction
- 2024Fairway Lawyers, Grote Markt, Vilvoorde, Belgium · group
Alongside these: open days in the studio, workshops, and sales in Berlin, Antwerp and across the Netherlands. Little archive material survives from the early years. The work came first.
Beyond the work itself, connecting people with art is something that comes naturally.
Architects, musicians, people in advertising, newspaper editors, chefs. My circle of friends is a cacophony of people from all walks of life. All equally dear to me.