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Biography
Kees Thijn born in The Netherlands (1933) reinvents reality through his creative compositions: utilizing a luscious color and adept technical skills. Kees recombines natural elements into fantastical images, inviting viewers to create original semiotic meanings from newly discovered relationships. Kees Thijn explains his art as a visual portal luring viewers beyond conventional meaning, “My preference continues to lean towards a surrealistic setting, where the depicted subjects receive a symbolic meaning. The symbolism on most of the paintings has to do with all that life is concerned. With my paintings I want to surprise and challenge you to unravel the symbolic representations.”
A nod to surrealism is visually present in Thijn’s work; he fluidly combines imagination with reality, dialectically empirical instances of surroundings with whimsical fantasies from the realms of fiction. Although the luscious landscapes, fruits and wildlife in Thijn’s work, seemingly represent actuality, fact is playfully subsumed by fiction through the juxtaposition of images in the composition. Through convention, images become coded through time, representing single definitions in a normative lexicon.
However in Kees Thijn’s art, uncharacteristic arrangement of imaginary creates new symbolic meanings, allotting viewer’s freedom from reality by visually stimulating the unbridled imagination. Thijn’s morphs dreams into reality, provoking thoughts to reassemble new relationships into inspirational anecdotes defining new possibilities within one’s personal life experiences.
Kees Thijn works dominantly in the Netherlands. Yearly and from time to time he works for months in California and the Canary Islands. His work is showcased internationally, including exhibitions throughout the Netherlands, Great Britain, Belgium, Italy, Germany and the United States. His art is in a number of private collections and public museums, including the Drents Museum in Assen, the Stedelijk Museum in Zwolle and Museum “Het Markiezenhof” in Bergen op Zoom.
Artist Statement
"Painting has become an important tool in my life to express my inner visions and emotions. My paintings can be classified as imaginative and figurative fine paintings with a mix of influences going from symbolism to surrealism. Most of the works are a combination of these two themes. In my paintings I use fine compositions and complex images with hidden symbolic details, enhanced by rich colors and hues, allowing me to express some of my passions, such as life, nature, humanism and politics. The majority of my works is meant to be a celebration of life."
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