Description
Biography
Sander Reijgers was born in 1977 in Alphen aan de Rijn, the Netherlands, and obtained his Bachelor of Fine Art degree at the Utrecht School of the Arts in 2006. In 2014 he graduated as a Teacher of Fine Art. In addition to his work as an autonomous artist, he teaches Visual Education at a secondary school.
Sander Reijgers is fascinated by the phenomena of Time and Being. Inspired by the philosopher Martin Heidegger, he tries to experience these elements, which are crucial to human existence, by giving them shape in his paintings as an artist. He surrenders himself to the act of painting, to the process that leads from a ‘becoming’ to a ‘being’. The painting can become then an autonomous being and has its own identity that can exist separately from the artist.
Sander Reijgers respects the time that this requires. He builds up his paintings with endless patience by applying coat after coat of paint to the canvas – always resting to let the layer dry before being able to continue. Colour by colour, cautiously applied with a brush or roller, a painting is created that increasingly tells its own story. Whether or not they overlap, the superimposed colour layers, due to their materiality, will show the traces and reminders of what has previously been put down and is already present. By using different brushes and paint rollers, each of which has its own structure and texture and is hairy or not, paint layers are covered, previous layers are revealed or specific paint residues are pulled to the surface. This gives the painting a skin or a structure, of larger or smaller colour tips and points, like stalactites on the earth’s surface.
The light on the canvas or the perspective of the viewer brings the work to life, enabling the autonomous dialogue with its environment.
