‘I hope that the pleasure of painting and my love for the subject radiates from my work. Because without that it has no meaning’.
René Jansen (1956 - 2022) graduated from the Minerva Academy in Groningen in 1983. The love for still life, fueled by Ben van Voorn and Matthijs Röling, determined his actions as a painter for almost 20 years. Although he also paints portraits, nudes and people making music, still life was the subject where his growth as a painter can best be read. From restrained tonalist to convinced colorist, with the tone gradually becoming more impressionistic. The compositions often arose from the chaos within the studio. Not tidying up resulted in so-called coincidences gaining an important place in the work. The space in which the still life appears, as it were, is also of great importance. This was very decisive for the atmosphere, and gave the painter the opportunity to find a balance between suggestive, broadly painted parts, and more concretely worked out fragments.