EYE

Glance into the world behind the art

Interview with Chris Herenius
CHRIS HERENIUS / Jul 24th, 2017   


Whether his fine painting says something about Chris Herenius as a person? "I'm a quiet man," Chris says. In his work, nothing is offensive unless you take offense of his book Strange areas that he recently released by Philip Elchers.

The book contains extensive and edited scans of residual paint on his palette. At first sight, these abstract editions have nothing to do with his still lifes with dried flowers, shells, dead birds or frogs and glass vases. "People often do not understand that it's about the same. It's all about composition, coloring and detail. ' You must not look for a symbolic value or deeper meaning. It's not there. Chris depicts what attracts him. "I'm looking for items together. The ultimate goal is to represent this three-dimensional spatial on the flat surface.'


Whatever he uses on objects, the result is always a form of stillness. Not that Chris is a pronounced silent man, modestly he calls himself. Even if you do not read the quotes from his students and ex-students in the book they made for his goodbye to the Classical Academy in June this year. "Mr., if you wanted something easy, you would have taken a newspaper district." Or 'Never paint!' It is of course all said within a context and never meant to be offensive. "If the students did not appreciate it, they'd never made such a beautiful book for me."


Chris does not like to be at the center of interest, he is happy to exhibit is art. He also has no trouble selling his work. He does not attach himself to it. On a single exception, like the painted beach scene with wife and daughter. Although he does not like to paint people, he still depicted his family in his so familiar way. Detailed, loving and attentive. He will never renounce from this work.

He started his career in the paint industry, after 10 years of studying he may call himself a paint technician. "A beautiful subject, making monsters, researching, comparing." He occasionally painted, but noticed something wrong in his work. In 1972 he went to Minerva's evening school. He had a high dunk of paint knowledge of art painters. "But they did not know anything!" Meanwhile, many new materials have been developed in the field of pigments, resins and acrylate resins. Diederik Kraaijpoel wanted to tackle the lack of knowledge. And so Chris got his own laboratory at the Art Academy Minerva to do research.

The lab provided a half-time job and Chris seized the opportunity to focus on his own art. There was his heart. Yet, at the end, he finally taught at the Classical Academy for ten years, although he is glad that he no longer needs it. 'Nice to explain nothing more and to keep up with the technical literature.' But renouncing his books on painting, as he had planned after his farewell from the academy, still is too much to him.

Interview written by Tjitske Zuiderbaan for the newsletter of the Classical Academy of Painting, with photo’s made by Xandra Donders.

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