PIET VAN DEN BOOG
I have been experimenting with using metal as a canvas for my paintings for over fifteen years now.
I began working with rough steel plates, making them worn out and combining this with portraiture.
For the last 10 years, sheets of lead have been my preferred surface to work on.
As a modern-day alchemist, experiments with patinas and chemicals grant me unexpected possibilities on the lead surface, which result in completely new textures and colors - an intensity of color and texture which I could never achieve with oil and acrylic alone.
I combine these techniques with oil and acrylic, and at the same time, include abstract in figuration. My chemical techniques are unpredictable, a fact that gives me the freedom to work.
I recently made a number of paintings that were completely done with chemicals on the lead surface, giving them vibrant imagery.
Portraiture and figuration will always be the center of my work.
Dutch painter, Piet Van Den Boog (b.1951) currently lives and works in Amsterdam.
His work is included in many important international museums and collections, has found a new interpretation of the figure and portrait by way of an alchemic process that promotes effects of chemistry on the picture plane. Influenced by the writings of Sylvia Plath and painters like Jenny Saville, van den Boog’s point of departure is a photo reference, which he then enlarges to a monumental size. Oil and acrylic paint make up flesh tones and facial details, while abstract strokes in rust tones are chemically etched into the cold lead surfaces, becoming a powerful metaphor for the internal scars we all possess.
Van den Boog pushes the limits of portraiture by directly confronting emotion head-on by way of large-scale paintings. New ways of seeing, generated through a personal process, have always rewarded the viewer with new insights.
A modern-day alchemist, van den Boog’s experiments with base metals like lead, copper, steel, etc., form a grand visual allegory of personal transmutation and the quest for a cure for the human soul.
It is the process that ultimately imbues the portraits with relatable human qualities. The element of technical surrender alludes to the unforeseen consequences of intimacy and the perpetual co-existence of pain and pleasure.
Van den Boog’s work is exciting and emotionally rich in that, as viewers, we participate in his process and feel transformed by it. Moreover, he benefits from the uncontrollable nature of chemical action through accidents, which bring chaos to the organized mind.
Piet Van Den Boog is represented by Zemack Contemporary Art Gallery in Tel Aviv.