YOU’VE DESCRIBED PAINTING AS A LIFELONG STUDY. WHAT CONTINUES TO EXCITE YOU MOST ABOUT THE PROCESS, EVEN AFTER YEARS OF EXPERIENCE?

The more I paint, the more I feel like I don’t know anything. It’s kind of frustrating sometimes, but also the best reason to keep going. It gets me out of bed haha. I still remember the time I had never even heard of composition systems.. like the ones Alberti described in his books about painting, sculpting and architecture and now they’re all I think about. I had no idea back then about things like rabatment or pentagram-based compositions that show up in medieval manuscripts. Or that the golden mean wasn’t just a Renaissance idea, but something used even before painters like Giotto or Duccio. Geometry was always tied to God. it was the proof that harmony and proportion were signs of creation. Painters using those systems were, in a way, trying to get closer to God. Maybe that’s why some of them became so famous (besides most of them were mathematicians and what not). They were probably also seen as messengers. For me, just knowing that I’m allowed to try this, that I get to paint and study these things every day.. still feels like a privilege even after years, day in day out. That’s what keeps me going.

YOU MAKE YOUR OWN PAINTS AND MATERIALS. WHAT DOES THAT TACTILE CONNECTION MEAN TO YOU, AND HOW DOES IT SHAPE THE FINAL OUTCOME OF A PAINTING?

I like to be in control of the process. I want to know what’s in the paint. Some brands add all kinds of agents or fillers to improve flow or stretch the material, but that affects how the paint behaves. The better the formula, the higher the price.. So for me, as a proper Dutchman, making paint myself started as a cheaper solution, but quickly became a way to really get into the material. Sometimes I mix different pigments before adding the binder or fillers. I try out different kinds of fillers, but wood dust works especially well for me. It’s fibrous, slightly elastic, and doesn’t crack. It also gives me a surface I can build up in layers. Because I mix everything myself, I can also control how much binder goes into each layer. With acrylics, it’s about balance. Too much binder in the top layers can create a slick or glossy surface, but too little binder can lead to cracking or poor adhesion (something I’ve come across in books by Max Doerner and Ralph Mayer). I adjust it depending on the pigment and what I want the surface to do. I usually start with brighter colours and build darker tones on top. You can see it in the way early Flemish painters worked: they often started with light values and then added transparent darker layers on top. That gave the painting a kind of brightness that came from the layers within. It’s the opposite of alla prima or thick impasto, which I don’t use myself, I find it too muddy and dirty. In the end, all of this helps me understand the material better. How it dries, how it moves, how it catches the light. I like that. Maybe it’s the obsessive part of me, but it makes the painting feel more grounded and deliberate.

YOUR SURFACES OFTEN RESEMBLE ANCIENT CAVE PAINTINGS OR MURALS. IS THIS VISUAL QUALITY A DELIBERATE REFERENCE TO HISTORY, OR SOMETHING THAT EMERGES NATURALLY THROUGH YOUR MATERIALS?

Yes, I think it’s both. Cave walls were basically the first painting surfaces we ever had and I think there’s something in all of us that still resonates with that. We used to share stories and warnings, maybe long before we had language as we know it. We were already painting lions, tigers, mountains, rivers, trees. That urge to draw what we saw, or what we feared, or what we dreamed, or to communicate goes way back. Maybe we don’t think about it much, but I believe we still carry that connection. Painting touches something deep, and we often respond to it without knowing why. There’s a kind of collective memory built into it. So when I paint on rough surfaces, or use raw pigments and textures, I think something comes through. not because I’m trying to imitate caves, but because the material leads me there.That’s probably why those ancient textures still sneak into my work. They carry weight. Not just visually, but historically. And every now and then, someone, again, announces that painting is dead which is funny, considering it’s been around for over 30,000 years and still shows up everywhere. Cave walls, wood panels, stretched canvas.. it just keeps adapting. Meanwhile, the people declaring its death often don’t outlast the work they’re trying to bury. I don’t say that to be dramatic, I just think if painting is dead, it’s having a surprisingly long afterlife.

YOU TAKE INSPIRATION FROM BOTH NAÏVE PAINTERS AND EARLY RENAISSANCE ARTISTS. WHAT DO THESE TWO TRADITIONS OFFER YOU IN YOUR OWN WORK?

I see myself as a humble servant to the painters who came before me. Not in a dramatic way, I don’t idolise them, but I do act like I feel their presence. It’s something I carry with me in the studio every day. It does makes me a bit insecure now and then, to be honest, but that feeling also helps me to improve. And by improving I don’t mean chasing perfection, but finding clearer ways to tell the stories I want to tell. Those stories are often soaked in melancholy or nostalgia, and for that, I look at painters like Grandma Moses, Camille Bombois, and especially André Bauchant. I find it exciting to search for the right way to express that melancholic side of me without just painting whatever mood I’m in. I’m a pretty mixed bag of emotions and if I tried to paint everything I feel at once, it would just turn into a grey, heavy mess. So I try to focus on one feeling at a time. If I’m working with stillness, I’ll use more horizontal and vertical lines. If I want movement, I’ll lean into diagonals. That’s just one example but there are so many ways to shift the emotional tone through structure.What I admire in early Renaissance painters, and I mean really the first wave, from Masolino to someone like Piero della Francesca, is how they were still figuring things out. You can see them working with these new ideas like central perspective, or the beginnings of atmosphere and space, like in the work of Antonello da Messina. Everything still felt open. They were building the rules from scratch.And that’s where the connection with naïve painters and early Renaissance painters makes sense to me. What I love is that both groups somehow end up meeting. The Renaissance painters were trying to build a new system. They were figuring out the rules from scratch. The naïve painters, in a way, were trying to let go of all that tradition. But they couldn’t fully escape it. The academic painting tradition is too strong a magnet. Even when you try to reject the tradition, it creeps back in in how you structure a scene, how you use space, how a figure stands. That’s what I find funny and also kind of beautiful: different intentions, but they end up in the same place. Beautiful. Btw, of course I also look at the Northern Renaissance. I wouldn’t ignore those painters. But you have to start somewhere, and for now, I’m still too deep in that first Italian wave. I haven’t finished studying them enough.

MUCH OF YOUR IMAGERY COMES FROM DREAMS AND MEMORIES, ESPECIALLY FROM CHILDHOOD. HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHAT TO TRANSLATE INTO PAINT?

I often feel like I have too many things to choose from. There are always key moments in life that stick with me. Sometimes very small things, but they hit a nerve. I’m quite a melancholic person, and looking back is something I do a lot, maybe too much. The symbols I used in my childhood were often animals. Sometimes they were stuffed toys around my bed, sometimes plastic dinosaurs lying on the floor. But they were always part of the world I was building. They guided me through all kinds of dreams and visions. Both the good and the bad. That’s still what I translate into painting. It all comes in. Sometimes I paint nightmares, or scenes that come from darker memories. That usually brings a different approach: I’ll use for instance brighter unmixed colours, chalky textures, sharp thick lines, made with oil sticks. When the dream is softer or more peaceful, I slow it down. I use more balance, more harmony in the colour scheme. I often think about Fletcher’s color system and  try to control how temperature, chroma, and value can work together and I try to let that guide the mood. Each memory feels like its own little world, so each one asks for its own way of painting.

YOUR WORK IS HIGHLY PERSONAL, YET IT OFTEN FEELS UNIVERSAL. HOW DO YOU NAVIGATE THAT BALANCE WHEN TELLING YOUR OWN STORIES THROUGH ART?

Good question. I’ve honestly never really thought about it. When I make a painting, I usually start from something personal, a memory, a dream, or just a visual idea I want to try out with a new technique. I’m just trying to get something out that feels honest and true. But I don’t believe that if something’s honest, it will automatically connect and is good. I think that’s where a lot of confusion starts in the art world. For instance, I’m very curious about what people find beautiful or ugly. I want to understand how things land with the viewer. Not to copy it, but to know where that boundary is. Some will confuse it with commercialism, but I just want to be aware. Sometimes they overlap by the way, but they’re not the same thing. Nowadays I feel there is this expectation that artists should be 100% authentic all the time, but I don’t even know what that means. It sounds nice, but in practice, we’re all influenced by the world around us. If I only painted for myself, I’d probably end up with something only I could understand (and maybe five other people who are in the same bubble). On the other hand, if I only made what people liked, I’d lose myself completely. I’d end up for instance painting from pictures and become a human printer on repeat. So I try to stay somewhere in the middle.

WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION WHEN 4BYSIX INVITED YOU TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS PROJECT THAT USES ART AS A WAY TO SUPPORT COMMUNITIES?

I was really honoured to be invited. I love what you’re doing, using art as a way to create impact beyond the studio. It feels genuine, and I could see from the start that it was being handled with care and professionalism. I think it’s a beautiful example of how art can stay grounded and socially connected. And if you’re ever in Holland, you’re always welcome to drop by.. we’ll find a good place to eat and talk more in person.

CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE PIECE YOU CREATED FOR THE 4BYSIX AUCTION? WHAT EXPERIENCE OR FEELING WERE YOU EXPLORING?

I painted a horse. Horses have been part of my drawing life since the very beginning, but not for romantic reasons. It’s actually the thing I fall back on when I don’t know what to draw, or when I’m trying something new and need a familiar subject. Horses are my go-to. It all started in primary school. I had a teacher who showed us how to draw a horse in the second grade, and I still remember it step by step. He drew two circles side by side, then next to them a shape that looked like a flower pot. At that point I was confused: How could this possibly become a horse? Then he connected the circles with two curved lines, one on top and one underneath. The flower pot shape got attached to the front circle, and then he added four arabesque-like lines going down for legs. Suddenly it was a horse. Just like that. I thought it was magical. That moment really stuck with me. And I still draw them that way. When I paint horses now, it feels like stepping into a time machine. I’m right back in that classroom, watching it happen for the first time. The horse itself doesn’t carry deep symbolic meaning for me, but the act of painting it does. It brings me back to that early excitement of learning how to draw. And that’s worth a lot.

YOUR PAINTINGS OFTEN FEEL QUIET BUT EMOTIONALLY POWERFUL. WHAT DO YOU HOPE PEOPLE TAKE AWAY AFTER SPENDING TIME WITH YOUR WORK?

I always have the viewer in mind, many viewers, actually. Sometimes it’s people I know, sometimes people who’ve passed away and sometimes it’s God. When I make work for a show, I hope the people I’m working with, like the gallery and the team, like it as much as I do. If it’s something more personal, I hope my partner responds to it. If it’s for an institution, I think about how the visitors might feel. And when I’m sketching or designing, I imagine a whole group of painters watching over my shoulder, judging me very very hard haha. But what I hope people take away emotionally… I don’t really know. And I actually like that I don’t know. People often see totally different things in my work. One person thinks they’re looking at a sunrise, the other sees a sunset. One walks away thinking the painting is about a new beginning, another thinks of a rest. Maybe one hears birds waking up in my work; the other hears a stream winding down. That’s the part I like best, actually.. that everyone brings their own story into it. Because in the end, once the painting is finished, I become part of the audience too. The only difference is that I just happened to spend a bit more time with my paintings than the others.

WHAT ARE YOU EXPLORING IN YOUR PRACTICE RIGHT NOW, AND HOW DO YOU SEE YOUR WORK CONTINUING TO GROW?

At the moment I’m drawing a lot, and trying out some new composition techniques, mostly based on old proportion systems. One I keep coming back to is the 4:6:9 ratio, which I came across in paintings of Piero Della Francesca and Raphael. It gives harmony and order, yet looks natural and free. So right now, I’m focusing more on quiet, harmonious scenes. And I’ve become more picky about what and who I let in. I mostly keep my focus on what’s around me: my friends, my family, my dogs, my partner, my faith. That’s enough material for a lifetime.

And yeah, I probably live under a rock. But it’s a very quiet rock. And it’s not so bad.