"Breath Watcher I" Drawing

Portrait / figurative artist based in Venlo, Netherlands, working in charcoal, pastel and graphite.

Being without studio in the summer of '24, drove me to photographing trees during my walks in nature, resulting in a series of (large scale) vertical landscape photographic works.

Otherwise I draw portraits and vintage scenes based on antique photographs. I also have an ongoing series of contemporary takes on classical/mythological 'golden oldies' that have been painted many times in art history, and I really enjoy rendering the human anatomy in a direct and succinct way on paper, resulting in a series of nudes. My main focus is on Humans.

My approach to inspirational input is that of an omnivore, feeding in 360º on both 'high' and 'low' culture. My creative output has always been similarly divers in form. (i.e. sculptures in stone/metal/wood, paintings, murals, photo-based work) Only recently I have been able to narrow things down a bit.

For about a decade, circumstances forced me to focus on one mode of expression (2D, digital), and a couple of years ago I circled back to the place where my creativity once sprouted...

DRAWINGS

Early 2020, I started drawing again, after not having done that for more than a decade, and not this seriously since my childhood/adolescence, when I hardly did anything else.

I draw in a sparse yet naturalistic style, capturing many nuances and often adding layers dealing with realities of existence beyond the obviously visible. They are expressed in colour, direction, gesture, texture, juxtaposition of elements.

My images are spiked with a promiscuous mix of style features, which often makes labeling them as such into a somewhat laughable exercise, merely justified by heightened findability.

In my own way, I'm basically chasing Beauty in various ways. In a time of constant remix, I (ethically) use what imagery is available to me as raw material, and while trying to refrain from 'commentary' or any overly conceptual approach, consider any wisdom that might seep into my work while playing, a gift from Above.

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In the decade preceding my current adventure as a late-blooming draftsman, my medium has been a Mac with Wacom tablet and much maligned but truly magnificent Photoshop. Plus a high end printer (specialised art printing service for large formats) to get physical output. These were photomontages/manipulations. Scroll down for a couple of them that I left on this page.