When entities gather, crowds will take shape. A constellation of individuals with its own dynamics, construction and set of rules. Painting a crowd as well as looking at a crowdpainting pulls the artist or spectator into a complex image which might give the eyes a settling point or not. The phenomenon of a crowd, the process of its development and growth shows many similarities with those of the process of creating a painting and the act of painting itself. By tuning the sets of rules and testing its variations, concepts are being explored which are refered to as Crowdpainting.
All around us crowds take shape and collapse again. Just think of the millions of individual water drops which form a raincloud, just to the point where the cloud collapses into a shower of rain, People gathering and forming crowds are a phenomenon to be seen everywhere on this planet. Crowds of people feast, fear, fight, flee, dance, travel, protest etc.
We notice crowds all around us in our daily reality and on the evening news, but we are regularly also part of one. We know from experience the effect of joining a crowd and its impact on our individuality.
Using my painting skills, gathered over the many years in figurative painting, I explore the similarities between painting and the construction of crowds. From a distance the specator might perceive an image of a crowd; while approaching the canvas this image will fall apart into sole expressive paintstrokes which release an abstract story on its own.
These paintings can be abstract and figurative at the same time.
After years of figurative painting, I have found a way to release imagery from the painting while keeping its set of rules intact.