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Interview:
What we do is improvise on one canvas: not particularly on an existing theme, and not one at a time, but together, on the spot, we continuously react to one another with brush and paint. We do not have a concept beforehand, no theme; we start totally blancO
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Famous artists quotes, collected by Benfo
Benfo collected during the years quotes of famous artists, as part of their self-education in art. These quotes are now available on:
Benfo - dialogue in paint
It was in 2006 that Ben Vollers en Fons Heijnsbroek started to paint together for the first time in their lives, as a serious joke. Same spot, same moment, on the same canvas; it was for a public on Sunday afternoon in the park. What started out as a one-day-stand performance grew, during the next years, into a rather unusual but intensive dialogue-in-paint between two abstract artists. It resulted in 2008 and 2009 in 40 large abstract paintings that they had painted together. In doing so they developed a great deal of confidence and freedom in their duo painting.
The unexpected
Ben Vollers’ and Fons Heijnsbroek’s personal art is abstract and expressive. Both painters like to use their direct visual impulses entering into the paintings. This is one ground of their cooperation. The other common ground is that they are searching for all kinds of possibilities to incorporate the unknown, unexpected and unpredictable into their personal art. That’s why in practicing their duo painting, there is a similarity to discover. In a mutual sense they are the unknown/unpredictable for the other. Every moment during the painting process the direction of the painting is uncertain, because of the unpredictable other, who is able to change the whole painting in just a few seconds, and this without asking permission first or a verbal warning! It is sometimes very hard to accept, but during the years they have learned to appreciate this unknown, because both artists accept that they are dependent on the other’s unpredictable powers.
Dutch painting
Ben Vollers and Fons Heijnsbroek are Dutch contemporary abstract painters, so they are very familiar with the damp atmosphere and the natural light. They live both in the city Amsterdam with the typical mix of its old historical center and modern skylines, coming up more and more. They live daily in the sounds, the reflections, the graffiti and tags on the walls, the movements of the traffic and the narrow streets full of people.
Besides that they have grown up with the famous tradition of the Dutch landscape painting during the 17th and in the 19th century. This is their common soil as well.
Their Benfo-paintings betray all these common grounds, when one views them receptive. They cannot block or hide these aspects in their painting and happily they don’t want to. It is a piece of universal truth of painting itself that art in a sense is always regional art.