For many years Toon Kuijpers has been exploring a meaningful conjunction between representation and abstraction. Kuijper’s works are structured to equal the flat, tabletop setting of traditional still life painting. He demonstrates that a realist may also be a modernist through great skill and sensitivity toward the concerns and techniques customarily associated with realism.

Kuijpers’ still life paintings are inspired by Dutch pottery throughout the ages. His work seeks to capture a penetrating moment in a timeless terrain, where past and present brush up against each other for a moment. Kuijpers’ compositions are carefully constructed using properties of the mathematical golden-section principle and various light effects. The viewer is thereby invited to witness the artist’s search for the essence of the ultimate composition. By continually stimulating and setting the subject of still life under different levels of perception, Kuijpers is continuing a long tradition of Dutch painting within a contemporary context.

Kuijpers was recently awarded the European Award of Painting in Belgium. His work is currently held in public collections in New York City, the Netherlands and Taipei.