Le Mans 1994 Painting

My name is Knaepkens Ludo, born 1962, a painter living and working in Hoogstraten. I have been drawing and painting all my life. My mother painted and my father was in the transportation business. The genes I inherited clearly influenced my life and my work and are irrevocably linked to it. In my studio I paint with acrylic and oil paint, but I also like to experiment with mixed techniques. Over the years my style has evolved from Impressionism to graphic, colourful popart. The freedom to use my own colours, to mix images, implementing humour and texts in the work is something that has attracted me since my childhood (reading and creating comics). Not only my passion for oldtimers, classic racers, trucks, vintage motorcycles and pinups is an important source of inspiration, but also contemporary images or events, old photos, memories, music and lyrics can inspire me. Often I make compositions of images or I mix my models with a strange, unexpected background. The own use of colour combined with working with pixels makes my work graphic, sometimes even photographic from a distance. The entire image feels very lively and almost three dimensional due to the appropriate use of colour.