Art Talk
Park in Huizen
Oil on Canvas, 60 x 80
This is a painting that doesn’t reveal its meaning at once, even though the title lets us know that it is about a park. The biggest part of the painting shows a kind of summarized landscape. Redbrown tones of paint, dark brown paint strokes, they are concentrated in the centre of the painting. As if saying: “Here it is”. But what is happening here?
Stephan shows us how the park moves from the bright blue tree in the front to the rectangular building in the far end. We see a hint of a pond. Only after one sees the park, one sees the surroundings of the park. Namely light and bright colors, as a picture frame. But here they are a part of the narrative of the painting. It is as if Stephan wants to say that the park may seem a bit unfathomable, but it is not hostile. When you take the whole painting in consideration, it is more of an invitation to an unknown world, rather than a warning to stay out.
Nevertheless, is the painting a bit enigmatic. And that is probably because of the painting technique. The brown park is mostly abstract, it is a space in a larger painting. The brushstrokes are somewhat chaotic, a free hand. There is nothing recognizable, apart from the blue tree, the building and the contours of a tree at the right. It may surprise you, but the painting shows the park in the summer. Actually, the brown is not brown, but layers of red, green, purple and yellow. And so, we could decide that the light surroundings, the blue tree and the playfulness of the brownish looking brushstrokes lead us into a feeling of joy and warmth, despite of the dark tones. At the same time, it is clear that Stephan totally transformed this place into an autonomous image with a much broader narrative, that one can fill in itself.
This painting fits perfectly in the oeuvre of Stephan. He is not afraid of dark tones, to him it is part of sharing an experience. But there is also the light. “Don’t be afraid. You will discover your own path, and you will be all right”.
The painting of this park is more than a registration of a landscape. It is also “a feeling, and a thought”. Being a place at the same time makes me think of the imaginary island by Scottish artist Charles Avery.
Like other landscape paintings of Stephan, there is this deeper layer, that is almost religious. Like a walk in the park can evoke a higher experience, that will be okay in the end.
This painting was exhibited at the Haagse Kunstkring in The Hague, January 2024
Grady van den Bosch
Art Educator, Visual Artist, Poet
Sky above the moor
Oil on cotton, 60 x 70 cm
Although this painting is almost abstract, you immediately recognize a landscape. The elements of the painting seem almost minimal, with repeating movement and colors in the sky and in the grass. But they are clear: we are outside.
The painting gives you the feeling that one can experience when being in nature itself: overwhelming, bigger than one self, emerged in infinity and eternity, in awe and wonder.
In these qualities we recognize the abstract paintings of Rothko. But at the same time there is also the clear narrative of sky and earth.
When looking closer, we find that this painting isn’t that minimal. It seeks rapprochement and wants to meet you, not only surround you. That is because of the details like the energetic brushstrokes at the left, the wavy brushstrokes in different tones of purple and the curve of the grass.
A story between painting and viewer unfolds. A dialogue between man and an apparently ongoing image, full of refined movement and solidified time at the same time.
In this painting Stephan shows a true and personal voice, in this case slightly cartoonish. It is really his own display of a unique experience, that is at the same time universal.
Like a painting of Barnett Newman, one is invited to watch it for a longer time, in order to experience the deeper layers.
This is almost a religious painting. There is a higher presence than one self.
Grady van den Bosch
Art Educator, Visual Artist, Poet
View from my window
oil on canvas, 50 x 60 cm
When you see this colorful painting, your first impression is one of balance. Mainly because of the centered vertical stripe of green, that is the window. The painting gives the impression of some sort of symmetry.
But when you look closer, you see a refined play of lines and shapes, color and movement. Your eye moves back and forth from the front to the rear end, noticing more and more. The straight forms and lines form a fascinating coherence and tension at the same time, with the curved ones. We see a lot of layers.
We have to guess what the curved forms in the back are. I know for a fact that these represent aspects of a playground.
Your eyes also go up and down, where there is the contrast between the dark at the top and the light at the bottom, all guided by the green stripe.
One of the reasons that your eye goes back and forth is the choice of color. The flower in the front is blue and therefore tends backwards. The yellow background with its warm color tends forwards. The green is a link between the blue and yellow. Under which the dark blue shadows at the bottom, that ground the painting.
And then there is the almost perfect balance between dark and light and mid tones, that keeps the eye moving.
In the style of this painting we recognize Stephan’s love for expressionism. The use of black outlining can be a reference to the art of Max Beckman. But the way the paint is applied is typically Stephan. As is the theme.
Stephan never paints a view like this without a deeper meaning. This image shows something of an ongoing theme in his artwork, being: “inside – outside”. As in one’s inner world of experience and one’s external world of experience. This painting is about identity. Who are you, looking from the inside to the outside?
Grady van den Bosch
Art Educator, Visual Artist and Poet