Peter Heij, Utrecht, The Netherlands. Lives and works in the Auvergne, France.
He attended the Royal Academy for Art and Design (AKV | St. Joost) at Den Bosch, The Netherlands (1982 - 1987)
He works from the content, primarily in a realistic style.
The themes and subjects deal with people and the impact of their surroundings on their identities, particularly in the Figures (Gestalten) series. Others endeavour to reconstruct landscapes of the past (the Lostland paintings) or attempt to capture the shapes of the ephemeral (the Skyscapes). A later series reveal the traces made on the landscape by its inhabitants (Santa Fe footpaths) and a collection of sketches of faces from memory (Faces).
Most recent are the wisdom portraits of meaningful subjects. Where big questions are visualized in portraits.
In the Photo paintworks, the realistic images of photographs become enmeshed with painting and other techniques. The captured and unmoving reality is thereby changed, questioned, and placed into a different perspective.
The experience of new and changed insights and awareness through elevation above and distance from everyday reality, never completely losing sight of that reality, stands central in his work.
