I love surrealism, the shaping of the incomprehensible, spontaneous expressions without the intervention of the mind. Without explanation. Absurdist scenes, enigmatic combinations of objects. Through dream images and associations, I try to create images that express the subconscious what is there, pure and raw and because it is a painting, it is possible.
That's where a painting starts for me, always, with a form that intrigues me or something that occupies me. Then the idea starts to incubate and grow, the painting comes to life for me. Ideas arise from elements that I add but just as easily remove or change, because it doesn't feel right or doesn't work for me. Often these images have common ground with my life, but I can also search for the right image on the basis of collected photographs. My paintings are visual stories from my personal world where I mix it with a vivid fantasy and dreams that are worth being invented in paint.
In painting I have found an enormous challenge. The paints, the brushes and their brushwork, the techniques, the construction of a painting, the story I want to tell. It remains a constant process of making choices and reconsidering. The result is often puzzling and gives the viewer the opportunity to let his or her own ideas loose on it. I like that.
1970 - Woon in Tilburg, Nederland - Werk in eigen atelier in Tilburg.