South African artist Jan Willem van Bergen born 1964 in Pretoria, Gauteng
Jan Van Bergen is facinated by the excessiveness and voluptiousness of the natural landscape, or God’s garden- as he preferes to call the vistas of unspoilt nature in this part of the world. It is his intention to capture the exuberance of life as it gushes forth in the flora of the southern african landscape. Jan Van Bergen does not paint human interventions –not because they are not natural, but because they detract from the landscapes Godliness. In a sense man is defined by his emergence from the immanent continuim of the universe. Space and time define the discontinuous world of man. Contrary to this God is found by man in the continuous… immanent world of the startling and unexplained. There is no better symbol of this than the untainted natural beauty of the african landscape.
Jan Van Bergen has been influenced by Hokusai and Hiroshige. This can be seen in his economic use of line. He has also been very heavily influenced by van Gogh -who was also influenced by Japanese 19th century artists. The movement captured by the brushstroke is very important to Jan Van Bergen. He works wet and believes in maximum effect through minumum effort. Is the painting a single movement that cannot be overworked? Definitly. It is a movement that signifies spirit. It is only in this sense that a work consoles. Life is hard. To offset this hardness the painting provides consolation.
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