About
Hi, I'm HERCULES.
Most of my paintings start in the evening. The house is quiet, I walk the two streets to my studio, and I paint whatever caught my eye that week.
That is usually a woman. Not all of her, just a piece. A mouth, a wrist, the way a coat folds. That's how you notice people in real life, in fragments, and your head fills in the rest.
I didn't go to art school. I applied once and got rejected, so I studied communication, worked in marketing for years and kept painting on the side. First digital illustrations, then more and more oil.
In 2020, pregnant and in the middle of a pandemic, I quit my job to focus on my family and on painting. Anyway, here we are.
The studio
My studio is an old bike shed under the ground in the Rivierenbuurt, in a building full of other makers. I share my space with another painter, and down the hall there are people who make all kinds of things. Most evenings everyone works on their own thing, but you can always walk into someone's room and see what they're making. That keeps it lively, even on a night when I'm painting alone.
How I paint
I've tried acrylic, ink, chalk and charcoal, but I keep coming back to oil. It stays wet for a long time, so I can keep moving the paint around in the same layer. I mix almost everything from the three primary colours. After years with the same paint I know what a colour will do before it's on the panel, which leaves my head free for the painting itself.
I learn most from the Dutch seventeenth century and from painters with a loose hand. Not their subjects, but their approach: a small palette, attention to light, and stopping before everything is filled in. Rembrandt could paint a whole hand in a few quick strokes. That's still the goal.
Feminine Fragments
The Feminine Fragments are small on purpose: 20 x 30 cm, oil on wood. A panel that size fits into an evening, and working fast is when the paint does the interesting things. I look at a lot of fashion and beauty images, I can scroll through them for hours, and pieces of them end up on the panel.
Every painting is a one-off. The original goes to auction, starting at $99, and after that it becomes available as a print. I film each one while I make it, so if you follow me on Instagram you'll see the next one coming.
Since 2015 more than 450 of my paintings and prints have gone to collectors on every continent. Along the way I showed work at WTC Amsterdam, various galleries, painted live on TV and events, and won on an episode of the Dutch largest art painting show.
Questions about me or my work? Email me at contact@artbyhercules.com.