Arnold Janssen

Hello, I am Arnold Janssen — an 'absurd' surrealist painter from the Netherlands.

I was born in Haarlem in 1969. After a few years working in advertising, I decided to pursue my true passion: painting. In 2011, my painting Vision was selected from almost 5,000 submissions for Zomerexpo: New Masters of the Low Countries at the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, now Kunstmuseum Den Haag.

Since 2017 I have been a member of KZOD in Haarlem, a professional association of visual artists founded in 1821, where I exhibit regularly in its historic gallery De Waag. My work has also been shown in solo and group exhibitions elsewhere in the Netherlands and featured in newspapers, magazines and online publications.

How do my paintings come into being? They simply emerge. I never make a sketch — I paint directly onto the canvas and let the scene find its own way. Recurring icons take over the work; they belong to me.

Every finished painting then goes into the closet, untouched, for at least six months. It is a process of stagnation and growth. Sometimes I repaint half the canvas. If I am still not satisfied, I destroy it.

Often I do not understand what a painting means until months after it is finished. That is why so many of them turn out to be ...

Self-taught. I developed my technique and visual language entirely through my own practice, painting directly onto the canvas without formal training.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2025 - The Hallucinatory Sky, de Wereld, Haarlem, Netherlands
2025 - ARNOLD, de Wereld, Schalkwijk, Netherlands
2024 - Pareidolie, Galerie de Waag (KZOD), Haarlem, Netherlands
2023 - Unexpected Events on Canvas, Galerie de Waag (KZOD), Haarlem, Netherlands
2019 - Solo Exhibition, Galerie De Luifel, Heemstede, Netherlands

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2018 - Place du Tertre, Janskerk, Haarlem, Netherlands
2018 - KZOD Members Exhibition, Van Ooijen, Haarlem, Netherlands
2011 - Zomerexpo: New Masters of the Low Countries, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag (now Kunstmuseum Den Haag), The Hague, Netherlands

SELECTED PRESS

2025 - Anna Bartlema, "De hallucinerende hemel van kunstenaar Arnold Janssen"
2022 - Spaarnestroom, "Arnold Janssen creeert zijn eigen wereld van toevalligheden"
2022 - Ruud Lapre, "De visioenen van Arnold Janssen"
2019 - Leontien van Engelen, "Arnold Janssen toont zijn fantasiewereld in de Waag in Haarlem"
2019 - Spaarnestroom, "Neem even de tijd voor de schilderijen van Arnold Janssen"
2018 - de Heemsteder, "Visioenen, intrigerend thema"

KZOD exhibition catalogues: ARNOLD (2017), Een imaginaire fantasiewereld in de Waag (2019), Onverwachte gebeurtenissen op doek (2022), Pareidolie (2024)