Rikus van der Meer

Biography

Rikus van de Meer (born in Leeuwarden in 1947) graduated from the Minerva Academy in Groningen in 1971 with a Masters degree in Fine Art. From early childhood onwards he drew and painted dogs, birds, people, horses and bulls. Significant but unfamiliar objects which awakened his curiosity also found their way into his work. From 1970 onwards, Rikus took great care to compose the individual, the attributes and the space in an imaginative and realistic manner with a highly suggestive use of paint. His paintings synthesized vulnerability, seriousness and humour in an extremely atmospheric way. Drawings of man, object and structures in addition to picture fragments were employed to achieve a unique connection. At the same time, he was also active from 1970 onwards in the teaching of art and in 1980 started work at the Minerva Academy. The exchanges with students were fruitful and a constant source of inspiration where Rikus’ insights and images of colour were concerned.

The discovery that autonomous behaviour can be ascribed to objects resulted in the 1990s in a group of 35 small paintings of a choreographic nature. Man is kept out of the picture and proves to be unnecessary. After the destruction of a monumental allegorical wall painting ‘the lesson on the edge of the salt marsh” in Groningen in 2000, came the three “love bytes” which investigate the contact with and consumption of art. Quotations from art history are, quite literally, given teeth. From 2002 the taut canvas simultaneously bears a crumpled cloth in which the initial idea and its execution are completely open. In the resulting “reliefwerking” Rikus paints in anticipation of this new blank division of a surface. In an inventive manner the works finally acquire titles such as Catwalk, Stamppot, Turning point. An air of romance and raw reality from past and present meet in the painting in a single glance.

The innovative art of Rikus van der Meer indicates that human perception at any given moment is determined by countless thoughts and feelings. For the first time in seven years, twentynine works from the oeuvre will be exhibited in a solo presentation in the splendid new show rooms of Brand Contemporary Art.

Current activities
Hanzehogeschool
1980- the present: Lecturer at the Minerva Academy

Elsewhere
1972- the present
1970 – the present
Lecturer C.H.N. Pabo Groningen
Freelance artist