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After graduating from the Willem de Kooning Art Academy in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, in 1991, in Painting and Graphics, I continued to developed myself as a painter and mixed media artist. Embracing the modern techniques of digital design and photography, combining them with painting and different graphic techniques, I am blending them into colorful and dynamic works.

Much of the imagery and inspiration stems from my extensive travels to many different countries. Always a camera at hand, I take many pictures that are later used in digital compilations and paintings.

Traveling has always proven a great way to reflect on myself. Exploring different cultures and unfamiliar environments can clarify much on who we believe to be. It is always ourself that we take with us on the journey.

It is inspiring to meet people in their different environments. To witness the development of their modernizing lifestyles and to see the differences and similarities in the dynamics of their cultures. It's an intense way to become aware of how we shape our own world. A journey to understand and visualize what drives people and to unravel the deeper motivations behind them.

In my early schooldays I took the train to see much of Europe. After graduating from the Art Academy, I started traveling more extensively across the world. Initially mostly to India and the US, later on I went all over Asia, Central America, Australia and more. Sometimes being on a journey for half a year or longer. I have always found a lot of inspiration for my paintings and photography in these adventures.

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Beginning 2000 I moved to Costa Rica with a group of like minded traveling friends to pioneer an alternative community named Pacha Mama. Over the years this place in the forest has developed into a thriving ecological and spiritual commune that has received tens of thousands of spiritual seekers and visitors. I am still going to Pacha Mama almost every year and it continues to be an other home to me.  

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I went to Portugal for the first time some 30 years ago and immediately fell in love with the different light and colors. Since then I went back many times to the South Alentejo / North Algarve / Atlantic coast area. Now, many years later, I live and work there, just outside Aljezur, as well as in my hometown, Rotterdam. Mostly I'm spreading my time between these two places, unless I am on the road somewhere else.

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