I don’t think there was one single defining moment. Rather, my understanding of art has grown over many years of practicing. Viewing original paintings has always had a great impact on me. What has become increasingly clear to me is that painting is not about illustrating. It is a way of paying attention, showing patience and accepting uncertainty. The meaning of making art, for me, lies in creating a space where something can emerge that could not have been strictly planned beforehand, and where a secret will remain anyway, even for the painters.

The process begins intuitively, and I start by applying the first layer of paint across the surface. I create a fleeting space or sound, to which I then respond with traces of movement and rhythm. Much of my work up to this point is intuitive. Rational thinking comes into play later. I take a step back, look at the interrelationships and reflect on composition, colour, tension and balance.

Sometimes it stays like that for days or even weeks. Then, at some point, that moment arrives, like a decision, and I take up the challenge once more. This, too, can happen several times over. My paintings emerge from this constant dialogue, rather than from one aspect or the other alone.

During a long-term working visit to Curaçao, whilst collaborating with a local artist and gallery, I found myself in a situation where, despite all my prior research and planning, I was initially unable to get hold of any paints. Potential shops had closed in the meantime.

Rather than forcing myself to do what I had envisaged, I try to understand what is actually possible. So I began experimenting with frottages of stones from the shore and plants on cloths. Apart from all my gadgets, baggage, and the structure that I was used to relying on in my atelier at home, it became an invitation to discover new and unexpected visual relationships.

Then someone gave me some really good paints, and I carried on working with both aspects. In general, I work with many layers and different materials, so technical knowledge is essential. Exploring the properties of materials has become an important part of my work, which I enjoy very much. Every material has its own behaviour and its own language.

My responsibility ends with exhibiting the work. What happens afterwards takes place in the encounter with the viewers.

I hope that they will first experience the work through their senses before attempting to explain it. I want them to pause and take in the subtle shifts in colour, traces of movement, hidden layers and changing moods. If the images evoke a memory without naming it, or stir a feeling that is not easily put into words, then that is good. My aim is to create spaces of resonance rather than to provide answers.

My personal experiences have undoubtedly shaped my artistic practice, though not in a literal or narrative way. Rather than influencing what I paint, they have influenced how I perceive. I do not consciously draw on cultural symbols or narratives. Rather, various places and cultural environments have shaped my perception of light, colour, space, the hidden and atmosphere. My Dutch family background and my connection to Curaçao have further broadened my visual horizons, but rather than depicting these places directly, I translate the feelings and memories they evoke in me into paintings that explore perception and emotional resonance.
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My academic education gave me technical discipline and an awareness of art history, but equally important has been everything I have learned through years of sustained studio practice. Painting itself has become my most important “influencer.”

I often find myself thinking about situations like this: What if ...?

Unlimited time and resources seem like paradise at first glance. But even in my wildest dreams, it still simply comes down to me as a person. They touch my search, my doubts, my feelings.
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But one specific concept/idea keeps coming back to my mind often:
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I would like to create a kind of immersive work in which my painting becomes more of an environment than a collection of individual canvases. I am thinking of large-scale paintings, free-hanging elements... enough space to move through the work as if entering a landscape of memory and perception. This would involve a correspondence in which something is behind you, in the literal sense, while another perspective at the same time leads forwards. The project would not tell a single story. Instead, it aims to invite people to experience time differently, to slow down, to look closely and to become aware of how memories, traces and emotions come to the surface through mindfulness.
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Ultimately, this would be a representation of my artistic exploration of what has always interested me most. The presentation also sums up my painting technique and remains open.

Although my work may recall traditions such as Art Informel or Abstract Expressionism, my work is different. I have adored many of these artists for ages! I am interested in gesture not so much as an expression of the self, as, for example, in the work of Hann Trier, but rather as traces of a process. My interactions respond to the surface/ground, which I prepare layer by layer beforehand. I respond to this in a painterly way, and then respond to that in turn. They reveal connections between what is visible and what remains hidden.
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I understand painting as a form of listening. Not in the literal sense or in the sense of translating a tapestry of sounds, but as a state of heightened mindfulness. It is less a metaphor than a way of working. “Listening” describes the reactions and presence throughout the entire painting process.
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In this way, my gesture is a response to what is already present on the canvas. When I paint with both hands simultaneously, especially on large-scale formats, movement begins from the body’s centre and extends through the entire gesture, creating a rhythm.
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Memories accumulate in layers, revisions and traces that cannot be completely erased. The surface of the finished painting is also important to me. It conveys “something” extra.

I rarely begin with a predetermined image. What I have at the start is usually a direction rather than a destination: an atmosphere, a question, a mood or a sense of movement that I want to explore. The painting develops through a dialogue between intention and response. I make something, observe what it creates, and react to it. In this way, painting becomes an act of listening, in my way, as much as an act of making.
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The visible traces, marks, layers, interruptions and erasures, are not corrections that need to be hidden. They are evidence of the painting’s history. I want them to be seen. Every decision leaves a residue, and every new layer enters into conversation with what already exists. I am interested in preserving this sense of becoming. I prefer, no, I love (!), larger formats. Large canvases invite a physical engagement; they allow my whole body to enter into the painting. My gestures often originate from the centre of my body; sometimes both hands work simultaneously, creating rhythms that could not arise through careful control alone. Smaller works require a different kind of attention.