Joachim van der Vlugt

The Armour I (Contemporary portrait painting)

2015

Artist Biography Dutch painter Joachim van der Vlugt was born in 1970 and currently lives in Luxembourg. His body of work presents a synergises an inspiration taken from classic Dutch masters combined with his personal contemporary style. He predominantly creates landscape and portrait impressions. Joachim van der Vlugt trained at the academy of fine arts in Maastricht between 1988 and 1993. After studying he established a personal style that reflects a passion for the great masters of Flemish painting. Using a dim palette of sombre black and white, brown beige and often blue tones, the artist’s body of work is characterised by it’s dazzling, mysterious and esoteric aesthetic. Van der Vlugt uses a layering approach to rendering which enables him to bring the nuances and intensity of light to the fore. This also allows images and vaporous shapes to slowly appear. He composes his paintings by accentuating certain parts but also by integrating geometric shapes or virtually transparent smears. Figurative elements ultimately become abstract until the artist achieves what he describes as "an orchestrated chaos." He is one of the founding members of the Sixthfloor artist's collective in Koerich, Luxembourg. For over twenty years Joachim van der Vlugt has been exhibiting largely in Europe, in different galleries in Luxembourg, Holland and Germany, as well as in various contemporary art fairs. Artist Statement “For me, painting has a lot to do with introspection and is a very intimate form of expression but it is not isolated. On the contrary, art is the most direct and intense form of communication. Like thesis and antithesis are core to every philosophical discourse I like to explore how different elements interact. Every action I execute while painting provokes a reaction until a certain balance, harmony is achieved.” – Joachim van der Vlugt