Without Words - Ruud Schoemaker (1959)

Ruud Schoemaker (Vlaardingen, 1959) was educated at the Minerva Academy, in sculpture and painting. If you look at a painting by Ruud Schoemaker, you will imagine yourself in a dream world full of symbols, myths and religious references. Each painting tells a story, leaving plenty of room for the viewer's personal interpretation. By looking longer you discover, more or less by accident, numerous figurative elements, which at first seem to have withdrawn from your gaze. Both image plane and story consist of several layers and have a double meaning. The use of color is colorful, without being garish. There is no palette in tones; Ruud works with clear color contrasts and does not seem to have a special preference for a particular color gamut.

 Like the depiction and the use of color, the way of painting is also complex. Paint and tools are handled in various ways, sometimes transparent and flowing, sometimes opaque and pasty. Surfaces and spots are given shape and meaning through line.

 The frames are a very special part of Ruud Schoemaker's paintings. They are an extension of the painting and they form, as it were, a transition zone between the canvas filled to the brim and the empty wall, made themselves and provided with decoration and color.

 The work of Ruud Schoemaker captivates with its own way of imagining the world and has enormous expressive power. Ruud Schoemaker has mainly made a name for himself in the Netherlands and Germany and in the past has exhibited at Galerie Van den Broek and various modern art expositions with works by artists such as Anton Heyboer, Jan Cremer, Clemens Briels.