Artist Statement

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For most of my life, painting has been my passion. Through art I can express the wonder and the curiosity I feel about the world I live in. My work is an intuitive improvisation on nature and on the impressions of daily life. Through a process of psychological realism, visual elements are restructured into an abstraction of the landscape and the figure.

Living in coastal Maine, I am inspired by the raw beauty of the landscape and the Atlantic Ocean, the worn surfaces I see around me. The ships in the harbors with their many layers of industrial paint are scratched, marked and worn down by the elements.

Each picture develops into a unique expression through the relationship of colors, forms, marks, and through rhythm and balance. Using visual suggestions, I draw the viewer into an imagined landscape: into a colorful, dynamic world that hovers between the abstract and the representational.

- Jaap Eduard Helder