Decorating Nirvana Unplugged (2020) Painting by René De Bruijn

René de Bruijn had been an art lover for over fifty years before he started painting himself.

In 2019 he reluctantly signed up for painting lessons, and something blossomed in him. The

enthusiasm for this new hobby was like falling in love: for the first few months he

almost couldn’t stop painting, and his production was enormous. Why hadn’t he started sooner?

René works very intuitively and without a predetermined plan. His work is colourful, playful, hard and soft at the same time, but underneath there is always a story which arises during his painting.

Themes seemingly haunt him and then find their way onto the canvas: religion, ethics, humanism, life, the origin of the world.

It's no small business the topics René finds himself dealing with. In addition, you will find his optimism in his work: he often brings the possibilities of humanity into the picture, as a utopia.

Art is a medium for him to tell stories, although he is not averse to viewer interpreting the story differently, he finds other meanings can enrich the work.

His paintings also have a graphic side., that can be traced back to his work: René is trained as a mechanical engineer and has his own company in process automation.

The technical details that he deals with in his job are also found in painting – albeit in a more playful way.

When René isn’t painting, he still observes a lot of art by other artists. Everything he sees daily – whether it is art or not – forms a continuous stream of new inspiration.

At various moments during the making process, he analyses his work with a ‘Google Lens’, which compares it with all the similar images found on the internet.

This way René gains insight into how his work relates to art history and to what has – unconsciously – inspired him.

He calls it a ‘shallowly comparison', because this artificial intelligence does not give any further insight in to any further work on his painting, but it helps to maintain control of his work.

In the last 2 years since his first painting lesson, Rene has started to work more thoughtfully.

Now he takes his time and works on a painting over a few weeks, with more attention to detail, as there's still plenty to attempt and achieve.

In his latest works, for example, Rene has become looser and less controlled, including dripping and splashing the medium, which creates a graphic scheme, as well as using conscious paint strokes.

Deciding when a work is finished becomes more and more difficult; the bar is set higher and there are always opportunities to deepen the story told.

He never will finish painting.

• Nationality: NETHERLANDS
• Date of birth : 1961
• Artistic domains:
• Groups: Contemporary Dutch Artists