Influenced by the works of Northern European Old Masters, Stef Driesen’s paintings often incorporate references to art history through their colours, compositions, and subject matter. Through this lineage, Driesen draws from his own personal experiences to create beautifully expressive canvases evoking both emotional and physical sensuality. Using his own sexual identity as a platform for investigation, Driesen’s work expands upon the theme of man and nature: each canvas conceals a human form within his abstracted landscapes, creating a symbiosis between the romantic sublime and mortal carnality.
Using a fleshy, earthy palette, Driesen’s canvases blur the bounds between tangible and psychological space. Watery grounds, delicate brushwork, and intensified tones lend a sense of dream-like terrain, translating materiality of paint into ephemeral fields redolent with contemplation, desire, and loss. In their poetic articulation, Driesen’s paintings convey the intimacy of the human condition, rendering it equally fragile and heroic. Watery mountain scapes and dramatic skies frame ambiguously figurative foreground elements. Soft pinks and flashes of azure punctuate dark canvases highlighting rivers through the picture plane and revealing landscapes beyond. Ultimately Stef Driesen’s compositions expand space, opening up an imaginary dimension into a world full of the theatrical and fantastic.
Stef Driesen draws inspiration from the compositions, colour palettes, and themes explored by these Old Masters, and is inspired by the way in which they used all of these elements to project a vision of life in their time, political, religious, romantic or otherwise. Watery mountain scapes and dramatic skies frame ambiguously figurative foreground elements. Soft pinks and flashes of azure punctuate dark canvases highlighting rivers through the picture plane and revealing landscapes beyond. Ultimately Stef Driesen’s compositions expand space, opening up an imaginary dimension into a world full of the theatrical and fantastic.
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If you want any information about Stef Driesen or looking for his paintings please visit us on http://www. saatchi-gallery. co. uk/artists/stef_driesen. htm
