bartws

I graduated art-school in 1999 as a sculptor. In the years after that I slowly evolved as a painter. For a few years I have been painting after nature. This evolved into working (semi-)abstract and in a strongly improvised manner. My works are results of completely unstructured adventures I undertake on a piece of paper, cardboard, or canvas. I explicitly do not have any theme, I do not have the slightest cleu on what my work is about, and I do not work on an "oeuvre". My starting point is an internal curiosity, playfulness, desire to fool around, desire to get atuned to the proces of creating. My art is my playground. I do, however, have certain criteria for judging my works good enough or not good enough to have a right of existence. Roughly I would say that I want my works to have an evocative quality; I want them to evoce lively images in the mind of the viewer instead of just depict a thing, a person, a scenery, etc. I also want the composition to be in a delicate balance; as if a natural dynamic was stopped at just the right moment to look at it for a while. I want to paint to have a lively flowing quality, like in an eastern calligraphy. I want the colours I use to have a certain autonimous quality; this is hardes of all.

I do explicitly not aim at a full-time career as professional artist, though my works are for sale and I like having them exhibited. I want my art to be an expression of life; if my only profession would be making art there would be far too little input. Most of my days I work as a mental health care professional, which inspires my panting.