Sander de Klerk is a self-taught painter from the Netherlands, currently living and working in Cape Town.
His previous career as a creative designer provided him with a fine eye for detail and composition which he now applies onto his paintings as a full-time artist. 2 years ago, after moving from Holland to Eswatini (Swaziland). Sander enjoyed the time and space to fully focus on painting. He happily took this opportunity to make a career change into art.
Artist biography
Sander de Klerk attended to the Design Academy Eindhoven (NL), where he graduated in the year 2000.
The Design Academy is well known for its focus on creative development and design innovation. The numerous art lessons introduced Sander to the different aspects of painting. The following 16 years Sander had been active
in various fields of product and graphic design. During this period Sander kept on painting for his own enjoyment; this practice turned out to be essential to confidently make the recent move into arts.
Influence
The main denominator in his work is the expressive way of painting. Sander starts his works without a preconceived notion of what the outcome should be. By using acrylic he is able to layer his paintings in a fast way in order to explore the different possibilities that come up. This Layering makes the works often rich in texture and colour.
Subject
Being in the early stages of his art career Sander allows himself to play around with different topics, styles and materials. Besides doing portraits on canvas, Sander is currently painting on stripped-off cardboard and working on a more recent collection of big abstracts, starting by sewing together his own canvasses. This recent explorations into the abstract realm is even more intuitive than his regular work; by filling big canvases randomly with figurative elements and pouring large amounts of paint over it, Sander creates organic pieces that cannot be thought out in advance. For now Sander embraces all these different styles with the confidence that they will result in a unique signature in the near future.
