The Netherlands
In july 1954 I saw daylight for the very first time in the little Dutch town of Meppel in the province of Drenthe.
In my last primary school class I became more interested in drawing , because we had a project to complete for the national holiday for the queen.This project was organized in all the primary schools in Meppel. My drawing was chosen to hang in the local newspaper window. I was very proud.
In 1969 I went with my father to Amsterdam to the Rijksmuseum. (The exhibition Rembrandt 1696-1969, I still own the cataloque as a souvenir ). I was so impressed by the paintings of Rembrandt, that I decided to become a painter.
After secondary school I attended the academy of arts Minerva in Groningen, from 1972 untill 1978. A college of free painting and graphic arts. Professors were Diederik Kraaijpoel, Wout Muller, Matthijs Roling and Ger Siks. My mentor in the graduate year was Geert Meyer, who worked totally different , but he had a flexible mind and he understood his profession so well that we got allong very well .
Belgium
I now live and work as a painter already many years in the quiet region of the Eifel on the border of Belgium and Germany. Regulary I have exibitions in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.
My painting style is Realism with a melancholic, mystical strain, bordered on the Magical Realism of the nineteen thirties. Painters that I adore from this period are for example Pyke Koch, Wim Schuhmacher, Raoul Hynkes, Dick Ket and Carel ( A.C.)Willink.
I also enjoy looking at the paintings of the Flemish Primitifs,painted by Jan van Eick, Hans Memling, Dirk Bouts and Hugo van der Goes.
The reason I paint the way I do, is because my inner feelings are reflected and portray a deeper feeling to life. I call it the reverse. In fact it is about vanitas.
That is also why I don`t try to create nice pictures in the common sense, but rather the story of the fragility of living on this earth. Everybody knows, that soon after we are born ,we are confrontated with less pleasant things ,such as decay,death,rejection,solitude and so on.These emotions are mysterious to me and motivate me to paint.
Although in most contemporary art ( I call it mainstream-art ) renewal seems to be the magic word. I disassociate myself from the mainstream. I am not searching for the tempory, but rather the timeless, that occupy and bind as humans. The same thing that bind us together, also divide us to the bone of the matter, were to there is no answer to be found. ( Thank goodness ).
The topic of my work is to discover my innerself with regard to my surroundings. In fact every painting that I produce is a selfportrait, in metaphorical sense. I am always looking for topics, that mirror my feelings. I am often inspired by the history of mankind and the history of art, from the past untill the present.