Leon Adriaans Dutch, 1944-2004

For many people, Leon Adriaans (1944-2004) is the typical southern Dutch artist / farmer who painted from a self-selected isolation, separate from the established art world, animal feed bags, canvas and rough boards.

On the one hand, Adriaans is completely Brabant in his theme of peasant life, his draft horses and his pigeons. On the other hand, this is only the point of departure of the artist for whom painting was of vital importance. Existential and universal subjects were what really mattered to him: the lifeblood itself, as he wrote, the unrealized areas of the soul, the search for insight. This search was expressed in colorful, direct paintings with maximum expressiveness about euphoria, comfort and forgiveness, about the creative fire and the painter's hell.