Marthijn de Groot

From a life which seemed doomed to be played out in the shadows or darkness, the artist has struggled towards the light. His expressionistic style of painting reveals the urge to manifest itself. The unconsciousness becomes the center of his works. Figurative elements rise in a suggestive way from the colors and the form of the lines. Painting for him, is a spontaneous action, in which he integrates elements of his past and present life, as thoughts, experiences, exchanges. Handwritten scripts, former drawings, child paintings, creatures half-human, half-animal make his paintings abstract-lyrical, strong and flamboyant color sets expressive and mystic. Painting is also orchestrating for Marthijn de Groot. How two dimensional the canvas may be, the artist knows how to create a lively spectacle, an overwhelming opera finale, an orgasm of paint, an apotheosis in which extremes meet.

Marthijn de Groot works as a ceramist as well. Therewith he can change his way of expression and realize three-dimensional drawings in sculptures. He does works, which he calls “walls”, ceramic bowls and abstract figures. Heaven and hell, light and dark, man and women, life and death, beauty and decay, absolute silence and terrifying screams come face to face. Painting is thinking and working in extremes.

Painting as a distillation of his life history. Fragments of the tormented child’s spirit appear time and again in Marthijn de Groot’s world of perception. The child looking for protection is now an adult painter who wants to offer protection. Both elements appear in the paintings and the drawings, fighting for precedence or looking for a golden mean, resolution of conflicts, seeking harmony, balance and a new unity.

In his imagery Marthijn de Groot shows himself to be a passionate. Emotional involvement is in every fibre of his being. ‘I am a rebel rooted in love.’ He is artist, philosopher and lover with a sensitive, critical and social mind. His philosophy, honesty and conviction are the source of his work.