Ronald Zuurmond | Reality Imagined

Whenever I couldn't sleep at night, I would go for a walk along the river opposite my house. In the dark landscape the water was black and little lights twinkled in it. I took photos of the water surface with my phone. Using the flash created fascinating images.

As an artist, Ronald Zuurmond sees these images as 'gifts' that chance has thrown into his lap. He makes grateful use of the coincidental sightings and subsequently of his painting technique. Coincidence and technique, he has them both at his disposal. In the studio these nocturnal observations, visions from a dream almost, are developed into a series of paintings. In series form, as he has enjoyed working for the past year.

Ronald Zuurmond needs structure. The coincidental observation from nature becomes an artistic tool in the mind and hands of the painter. This need for order and structure probably has its roots in his earlier academic studies (sociology). Zuurmond is continually questioning himself and tries to find answers and solutions in his systematic research into the same subject. The series of flower motifs could just as easily emanate from nature as from his fantasy or dream world. Reality and imagination, choice and coincidence, artistic inspiration, knowledge and technique, the artist uses these circumstances and this craftsmanship as tools for his paintings to an equal degree.

For the past year, Ronald Zuurmond has been working with renewed vitality on an exceptional series of paintings in which this new reality is portrayed astonishingly well and beautifully: Reality Imagined.