Joran Van Der Haar

Joran van der Haar studied illustration at the Utrecht School of the Arts from 1998–2002. After this training, he obtained his teaching qualification at the same academy between 2002–04. From 2006, he worked as a teacher in Hardenberg and combined this with artistry. Joran himself says, “It’s amazing to listen to Ludovico Einaudi’s music and paint for hours and hours. The smell of oil paint and mediums. Lock yourself from the outside world and everything around you and focus on the painting on your easel." Joran created his style after he graduated, but he started with drawing collages on which he used pen and ink and digital techniques to create colorful prints, which would be stuck onto Dibond en poured in epoxy. In 2014, he started painting with oil paint. After he saw an exhibition in a museum, he decided to paint insects and flowers.

Figurative art, as opposed to abstract art, retains features from the observable world in its representational depictions of subject matter. Most commonly, figurative paintings reference and explore the human body, but they can also include landscapes, architecture, plants and animals — all portrayed with realism.

While the oldest figurative art dates back tens of thousands of years to cave wall paintings, figurative works made from observation became especially prominent in the early Renaissance. Artists like Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and other Renaissance masters created naturalistic representations of their subjects.

Pablo Picasso is lauded for laying the foundation for modern figurative art in the 1920s. Although abstracted, this work held a strong connection to representing people and other subjects. Other famous figurative artists include Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud. Figurative art in the 20th century would span such diverse genres as Expressionism, Pop art and Surrealism.

Today, a number of figural artists — such as Sedrick Huckaby, Daisy Patton and Eileen Cooper — are making art that uses the human body as its subject.

Because figurative art represents subjects from the real world, natural colors are common in these paintings. A piece of figurative art can be an exciting starting point for setting a tone and creating a color palette in a room.

Browse an extensive collection of figurative paintings on 1stDibs.