Painted Space Gallery

‘Colour and I are one. I am a painter’
Paul Klee, on a visit to Tunis in 1914

My approach to painting is led by colour and water qualities: their inherent qualities and how they work upon me.

I started working with colour forty years ago and still, structured colour studies remain foundational to my research and artistic practice. I return to them again and again. to renew my practice and to reveal new insights. There is always more to learn.

Water, ‘the creative substance for the generation of all forms’

Schwenk et al. 2005

My work is strongly influenced by the work of water scientist and Goethean phenomenologist, Theodor Schwenk. He describes water as the unifying forces that underlie all living things. These forms, structures and gestures inform much of my artwork.

Since I use watercolour as my primary medium, it makes sense that I focus on water as much as colour.

It is the path of the true artist to develop, change and transform through constant questioning and continual striving to understand Soul and World, Human and Nature.

Oh, I who wish to grow, I look out, and inside me the tree grows.

Rilke 1914

Gallery

Colour studies

1994-2025: Painting with colour, out of colour, these studies are the foundation of my artistic practice. They are a research tools as well as artworks in their own right and draw heavily on Steiner’s colour theory and are loosely influenced by the Assenza school of painting.

Nature Moods

2010-2025: Steiner’s Nine Training Sketches and the Seven School Sketches are series of nature motifs expressing the invisible forces that shape nature and human being. Both series are foundational to an artist’s understanding of objective spiritual laws at work in the world.

Murals

1997-2006: Lazure spaces and murals from 9 major mural commissions in medical environments and schools in Belgium, Australia and New Zealand. All the murals and lazured spaces embody anthroposophic art therapy indications.

Ikons

2000-2010: Inspired by workshops I gave on sacred art. All small works, usually on black matte card, using chalk pastels and or gouache. The Madonna sequence was created during the Twelve Holy Nights one Christmastide and express the two different nativity scenes of Luke and Matthew.

other Thematic Art

1988-2018: An eclectic collection of drawings and paintings. Some have a strong illustrative style, from literature and art history courses taught over the years. Others have Christian religious themes. All drawings use chalk pastels.

Jacobi, M., Schwenk, W. and Wilkens, A., 2005. Understanding Water: Developments from the Work of Theodor Schwenk. Floris.