Meerkat Painting

Winner of the Case Del Arte 2023 Art Prize, Majorca Spain, and a Top 10 Finalist at the Swiss Art Expo in Zurich, Switzerland in 2022. Be inspired by the high-energy art of award winning artist, Jan Raats. “I’ve often watched Jan paint in his studio, but its only for a minute or two while we chat about domestic logistics. Being in the hotel room with him while we were hemmed in with the typhoon is an an entirely different experience. The energy in the air changed so much I couldn’t focus on my reading. The concentration, intensity and finer-dashing was exhausting viewing. I held my breath for minutes until he changed colour or finger before dabbing madly again. With different colours on his different fingers his hands moved like old fashioned typists who knew the qwerty keyboard blindfolded. How does he remember which colour is on which finger? It was mesmerising. And when he comes up for air, his eyes refocus to reorientate to a world with a wife in it. Where does he go? The entertaining aspect is how he settles down or disentangles himself from a wet canvas, a palette with colours escaped from their indentations – to the sides, underneath, his knees, fingers, floor, chair, wrist and occasionally his clothes. The dance to get everything wiped clean is as frenetic as the painting itself. And then we both deserve a beer, and I can breathe again.’ Terry ‘Hoi An, Vietnam’ In his time, he has been an electronics, power system and nuclear engineer, a strategist, a project manager, a humanitarian and an artist. A career path linked by creativity and innovative thinking. Engage in the unforgettable conversations behind each art piece, while observing his painting style, using his fingers to create vibrantly colourful Impressionistic images. Jarring angles and intense colours give way to flowing curves and pockets of calm. Capturing a moment, a feeling, an expression. Covid has influenced Jan's current body of work that incorporates recycled plastic water bottle butterflies. Their link to regeneration, a sustainable, resilient recovery, hinting at the volatility of life, drawing attention to the scourge of single use plastic. The hand-cut butterflies lend themselves to geometric abstraction of the Abstract Expressionist artists. The evolving of the purely pictorial, according to the principal of horizontal-vertical vertical lines, to convey ‘absolute reality’.