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gelos michailidis

Dutch, b. 1968

“I started as an graffitti artist in 1986, which I did for several years. I am self taught and started painting in 2009. When I visited the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, I got inspired by the old Dutch masters (Andreas Schelfhout, Jacob van Ruisdael & Barend Cornelis Koekkoek).’

On the advice of my neighbour, I went to gallery ArtFusion in Amsterdam, and was allowed to exhibit. My paintings are still exhibited there; they gave me a chance then, for which I am still grateful.

At first I painted the Dutch sea and dunes, and also typical Dutch skies, in their myriad combinations of clouds and light. I was fascinated by the light and space and the shadows on the landscape.

In the last few years, I have mainly been painting the sea and waves. The structure of the turning waves always give a different composition, such as the foam flakes and the splashes. And also the transparency of the water. When the light falls on the waves, I want to capture this. This is a challenge to paint. I paint the waves with oil paint layer by layer on a panel, like the old Dutch masters did. That way, you get depth and transparency.

I don’t paint on the beach. Then I miss the details. I take pictures of waves on different days at different times. On my computer, I zoom in to see every detail of the wave. Then I start painting, and turn all those photographed waves into my own, ideal wave. Hyperrealistic. The sparkles in the sea, the dunes and the skies are an unrelenting stream of inspiration and ideas that I process on panels in oils.”