General News
26 April, 2023
Works storm New York
A NEW York gallery has become home to the works of Loddon-based artist Philippe de Kraan. Last week’s opening of De Kraan Art Museum by New York International Contemporary Art Society displays the works of De Kraan who moved to Tarnagulla two...
A NEW York gallery has become home to the works of Loddon-based artist Philippe de Kraan.
Last week’s opening of De Kraan Art Museum by New York International Contemporary Art Society displays the works of De Kraan who moved to Tarnagulla two years ago.
He tucked himself away in the solitude of goldfields history to create works for exhibition and sale in New York where the prize tags will range from $50,000 to potentially more than $500,000.
““The buyers at the big galleries in New York are serious investors. It’s a business for them compared with in Australia where people buy based on the decor of their home,” he said from his Tarnagulla studio and describing New York as the epicentre of the art world.
Dutch-born De Kraan has been exhibiting and selling works in the American market for several years.
While de Kraan opted to stay in country Victoria instead of attending the opening, reports say his works were acclaimed at the dedicated museum’s opening night.
According to the society, de Kraan was inspired by the “indomitable spirits of Van Gogh and Rembrandt to create art and express their passions against all odds, de Kraan strives to create timeless stories from a blank canvas that people can relate to and love today and tomorrow.
“De Kraan’s innovative style combines a fresh, novel form of impressionism and expressionism. He creates lush, vibrant, and textured portraiture and landscapes. His visually rich works exhibit a luminosity and a whimsical sense of fantasy.
“His unusually shaped figures interact harmoniously with his color palette which ranges from bold, striking colors to serene pastel hues.”
De Kraan tells art aficionados on the museum’s website: “To have mastered the meaning of expressionism is what I’d like my legacy to be.
“While living in Europe, he paid fees to people from all walks of life, including beggars, to allow him to reveal their inner secrets and stories in his popular and meticulously crafted brush and ink character studies.
“When you paint a person you have to make them live. You have to touch the soul.”
The society says de Krans’s paintings have been compared to the post-impressionist George Seurat’s pointillism style and that he was compared to iconic expressionist painter Paul Klee.