Reinoud van Vught (1960)
Searching, rediscovering and saving room for the track of a glob of paint. Reinoud van Vught enjoys exploring the boundaries within the art of painting, even though he believes the genres within that discipline - landscape, still life, or portrait – are somewhat limited. The painter finds the infinite possibilities in his technique. His subjects, from mushrooms to plants to ponds, may seem diverse, but their common denominator is their organic growth. 'When I was a child, I lived in Tilburg, but on the edge of the city, with nature all around,' says Van Vught. 'The land, the earth itself; it gets into you physically.'*
For Van Vught, there is little difference in the process of the creation of a plant and the process of producing a painting. It starts with the material: 'I want to get my hands in the paint right away and be active. That's why whether I'm working with canvas or paper, I put it flat on the floor. I move around the piece, splatter the paint on the canvas with a brush, scrape over the paint or work it with my hands. But that magic moment has to come upon me.' Colour takes his canvases and drawings to another level: in specks, in strokes and accidental paint puddles, the experiment takes on a life of its own.
* quotations: P. Tegenbosch, ‘Intuïtie als kompas’, Museumtijdschrift, October 2007
