Welcome on my homepage. You find here examples of my work as an art painter and illustrator. I live and work in Leeuwarden. In this city I have enjoyed my professional training. Besides painting still life, landscapes and portraits I prefer to paint nudes. I consider the nude as individual attempt to make a monumental portrait of the human body.
The first exhibition was in the autumn of 1993 and a lot have been taken place later on as well in the Netherlands as abroad.
The dearest object an artist may have, is his sketching book. Besides sketching models as study for my paintings I do it for the pleasure in drawing. Furthermore I have kept myself busy with designing book covers, CD covers and illustrations for publishers and newspapers like the former Friesian magazine Frysk and Frij, the KFFB, the Q and the Leeuwarder courant. Once in a while I still illustrate. You can find some examples of my work by clicking the following words; book covers, illustrations.
The intriguing use and the possibilities of the computer as an expressive mean or tool is beside the use for maintaining this homepage and the Internet; that amazing artistic "Alice in wonderland" feeling and working. You can find samples of these in my computer graphics, videos and slice presentations. In this manner my work gets the attention of much more people than the usual numbers in my local art and gallery scene. As it happens, the whole world that isn't familiar with my work has now the possibility to see it. That's just the basic condition for each individual visual artist; your own gallery to show your efforts. The computer, the Internet and (UPS in material sense) can make this principle true in "no time". In that way the Internet could have been developed especially for artists! Showing and selling your art aside the limited usual sale channels, so you can see and buy my work online.

Email-project 1998 : Allegorical design for a monument of Albrecht of Saxony conquering the Friesians in 1498. This (click) picture was part of an exhibition of designs in the provincial parliament of Fryslân in Leeuwarden in 1998.

Overview Still life

As an oil-painter traditional themes like still-life, landscape, portrait and nude form a central part in my work. I prefer to work on my self prepared masonite or sometimes metal, because I dislike the softness and texture of linen.
Fruit as still-life objects is always a very appealing subject in art; A human metaphor for temporarily existence of all what grows and flourishes. The awareness of that everlasting momento mori and carpe diem in a painted still-life is often too obvious, I think. Sometimes I hate still-life, because of this cheap and poor expression.

Overview Landscapes

Most landscapes I have painted in the nearby north western surrounding of my hometown Leeuwarden, Fryslân in the Netherlands, called Het Bildt.
There I like the typical openness of the Friesian landscape; The harmonious flat, almost abstract boundaries of air, land, and seawater.
A good excuse for me to leave my studio.

Overview Nudes

In my career as a painter I paid a lot of attention to nudes. I like the differences of the individual grace, vitality and honesty expressed in the human body. In my opinion this matter is often underestimated or denied by ambivalent standards of social norms and values. In contrast with that, The nude must be considered as an individual attempt to conceive a true portrait of the human body; an artistic and monumental contribution to human life and even to human culture. Within this vision I try to find my way out as an artist. In the beginning exclusively working after nature, now my nudes are placed in a more and more abstract cadre.
Another reality based on the awareness of the image of a painting is far more important. The material of a painting, its color, structure, texture rhythm and composition creates its own rules to it. This reality doesn't give a mirror like copy of a world outside of a painting, but can possibly express something about the outside world.
Principally a painting is a concrete object that appeals and expresses its own world. Hopefully a new sensed world of space to explore as well for the painter as the spectator. Imaging that world with the means of paint mutually should be the goal of painting and art.

Overview Portraits

Overview Bookcovers

Book covers I have made for several Friesian writers and editors. A book is a spatial thing. You can grip it, to see, to smell and to feel it before you even read any sentence or title. This first familiarisation with a book must awake the hungry desire to catch and to keep your book for reading.
In fact as a designer of a book you belongs to that select few that may read the first results of long-term writing process. So reading is the issue.
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Overview Illustrations

Just like making book covers one of my favoured occupations is illustrating. As one of the first readers you can make the early products of a writer, working in all loneliness, a bit tangible in an illustration. The old description of an illustration near a text, smells like a form of decorating in order to please the honourable reader for a silent breath at pine sight, is pure nonsense to me. In my opinion an illustration must keep the readers attention in a way he won't stop reading. Many illustrations I've made for the short tales in the former Friesian magazine Frysk and Frij and short tales and stories in cooperation with writer - journalist Robert van de Woestijne in the Voordraai of the Friesian Press are made for that manner.

Overview drawings and sketches

The dearest object an artist may have, is his sketching book. Besides sketching models as study for my paintings I do it for the pleasure in drawing. Working in a studio can be boring. Especially when the painting on the easel can be too difficult to succeed. For the moment you need to do something else than painting, to overcome the stress. Sometimes other obligations than art can be the problem. For that instances I always have my book and my pencil with me for that few minutes that suddenly occur. Wham.. Draw without thinking!
May be the happiest moments in an artist's life.
These sketches are what they are; Wonderful scratched gems, far from perfect, but precious to have and to realize on bad moments.
For my illustration work for magazines and books I prefer my pencil, because of the directness of expression and the tone of the pencil-line. You can see some samples at my illustrations page