Jaap Eduard Helder

Contemporary Abstract Art

Artist Statement

Helder at Studio 53 show opening

2019

Instagram logoView new work on Instagram

For most of my life, painting has been my passion. Through art I can express the wonder and the curiosity I feel about the world I live in. My work is an intuitive improvisation on nature and on the impressions of daily life. Through a process of psychological realism, visual elements are restructured into an abstraction of the landscape and the figure.

Living in coastal Maine, I am inspired by the raw beauty of the landscape and the Atlantic Ocean, the worn surfaces I see around me. The ships in the harbors with their many layers of industrial paint are scratched, marked and worn down by the elements.

Each picture develops into a unique expression through the relationship of colors, forms, marks, and through rhythm and balance. Using visual suggestions, I draw the viewer into an imagined landscape: into a colorful, dynamic world that hovers between the abstract and the representational.

- Jaap Eduard Helder