Jan Andriesse

Jan Andriesse (1950-2021) was a master of nuance and moments frozen in time. His paintings and drawings are a visualisation of his deep fascination with light, colour and natural phenomena. While his oeuvre is often linked to minimalism, it is at its core an exploration of the natural phenomena that surround us, such as light reflected on water, the colour spectrum or the effects of light at dusk.

He combined his keen observations with a strong interest in the principles of physics and mathematical sequences like the Fibonacci sequence or the Kepler triangle. As in art, he saw beauty in science (see for example Symmetry of water).

Beginning in the 1970s, Andriesse explored how fleeting moments – a rainbow, a shadow or the water’s surface – can be captured in paint without losing their dynamic character. He attempted to render immaterial phenomena tangible, approaching his motifs almost abstractly. To that end, the rainbow [see Rainbow] was a crucial motif: not as a symbol, but as a complex display of physics that he could apply to the canvas using subtle and precise colour gradients.

Water was a constant source of inspiration as well. The artist lived in a houseboat on the Amstel in Amsterdam, where he could study the ripples and reflections on the river every day. By applying paint in countless transparent layers, he created depth and something he called ‘oxygen for the eyes’.

According to Andriesse, 80 to 90% of his creative process consisted of looking. He asked that same deliberate stillness and attention from the viewer: only with time and surrender does the subtle visual power of his work, which revolves around silence, light, and gravity, come fully into its own (see for example From there to here or Caryatid).