Eric de Nieartist • painter • watercolourist • draughtsmanLeiden 1944

Eric de Nie originally worked figuratively before developing his own unique way of composing his paintings in the nineties. He drips different colours of paint onto the canvas one by one. By tilting the canvas, line structures and grids are created in a vertical or horizontal direction. Colours and lines are blurred using semi-wet brushes in different sizes, creating a richer colour palette. Coincidence and manipulation play a role in the creation of rhythmic structures. His love of music, particularly experimental jazz and composed contemporary music, is a great source of inspiration for the artist, who calls his work ‘lyrical pieces of music in colour’. He says about this: ‘I continue working until a whole of rhythmic colour shades is created between full and thin colour tones and lines that evoke an abstract spatial experience that gives you as a viewer the space to wander and thus makes time fade away. In my work, every colour has its own sound and all those colour tones merge into rhythmic melodies. That is pure music, music on canvas.' De Nie taught at the Rijksacademie and the Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague.