Painting by Jan ter Weele

"Orchard to the Sea " © 2005
Oil on canvas, 8 "x10"

Artist's Statement

Painting, for me, is about color, shape, and space. I like color. I like it for its own sake, and I like it for its expressive value.

My landscape paintings are interpretations of real places. I confess that I am pre-occupied with a small handful of places. This has led me over the years to do a series of paintings about them. Some of these places show up in my "Bridge", "Cumberland", and "Freeport" paintings. Over the past few years, in recent work, I have disassembled and re-arranged the imagery of these places.

My paintings and drawings of the human figure are about the interaction between the figures and the space that they occupy. I am struck by the way in which the human figure fills and bends space.

I work mostly with oil paint, acrylic, and enamel. When I start a painting I do not know in advance where it will go. When I finally resolve it, I discover what drove me to do it in the first place. I think the sources of painting, and of art generally, are unknown to us, flowing from some reservoir which is mysterious and universal.

 

Artist Bio

Jan ter Weele in his studio.

Jan ter Weele in the studio.
(photo by Jan Pieter van Voorst van Beest)

Jan ter Weele, born in Groningen, The Netherlands, is a painter with a studio in Portland, Maine.

His paintings have been in solo exhibits in Portland, Maine at Cooper Jackson Gallery, the Gallery at The Clown, Aucocisco Gallery at The Eastland, as well as the Maine Art Gallery vestibule in Wiscasset, Maine.

His paintings were in a four-person invitational show at Gallery 415 in Chicago. He was in three invitational shows at the New O'Farrell Gallery in Brunswick, Maine, along with Neil Welliver and Lois Dodd, among others. He exhibited in invitational shows at the University of Southern Maine in Lewiston-Auburn and at Gold/Smith Gallery in Boothbay Harbor.

His paintings have been in many juried shows, including shows at Essex Art Center in Lawrence Mass., the University of New England, and the College of the Atlantic.

He studied at Maine College of Art, Massachusetts College of Art, Honolulu Academy of Art, and the Art Students League of New York with John Hultberg, Peter Golfinopoulos, and Cornelia Foss.

He holds a BA degree from Princeton University, and MAT and Ed.D. degrees from Harvard Graduate School of Education. He graduated cum laude from Pomfret School.

His paintings are in private collections throughout the United States, Europe, and Japan.

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