Koi Harmony 1 Painting

Archie (real name Peter Diender) is a Dutch artist living in the Highlands of Scotland. He is a self-taught artist who has been creating art since 2010, using acrylic paint on canvas. His early artworks are colourful contemporary paintings, often in a more graphic style. They stand for a positive approach towards a fair and equal, eco-friendly and peaceful society. To him the many different vibrant colours used in those paintings represent all the different people, cultures and countries on our planet. All working in beautiful harmony, the way it should be. His main artistic influences for these paintings are artist and teacher Sir Michael Craig-Martin and renowned Japanese graphic designer Ikko Tanaka. At the end of 2021 he decided to take his art into a different direction. The paintings he's creating at present sees emoji characters placed in cartoon settings. These new paintings are much more influenced by pop art. In these days where we talk more and more in emojis he is taking the emoji characters out of the social media comment boxes and onto the canvas. It's more edgy than his earlier work with often more colourful language added to the still colourful paintings.