Jan Grosfeld the Netherlands — 1956

Jan Grosfeld (Valkenswaard, 1956 – Amsterdam, 2019) was a very well respected Dutch artist who’s works have found their way to the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen and many other institutional collections. Everything that is not necessary to tell the story has been omitted in Grosfeld's work. Without frills, his pictographic abstractions show a road, a human being or an animal, Grosfeld emphasises, reduced to the essence. It is an essence of desire and despair, of illusion and an unattainable promise. Jan Grosfeld about his own work: “Because sometimes things in life are so serious that it's a good escape to paint about them, but you can also put things into perspective so that the seriousness is negated. I am not looking for anything specific in my work. The subjects present themselves. With overwhelming power. Images or words force themselves upon me. I can't get around it. The most important works for me are those that I don't understand at all. In that regard, I believe in surrender. In the surrender to all kinds of spiritual actions, of which painting is one. I believe in the surrender that lies behind hysteria, just as I believe in ecstasy. The paintings are wishes, they are promises. The beauty of a promise is its unattainability. That is why I can continue to paint endlessly.”