Dutch artist, ANS DEBIJE, tells Sarah Edghill about her daily still life paintings
THE BIG INTERVIEW
A NS DEBIJE WAS BORN AND RAISED in the Netherlands. The eldest of five children, she developed a love of art and drawing from an early age. After leaving school, she studied industrial design at the Design Academy in Eindhoven, graduating as an interior and fashion fabric designer in 1984. Despite continuing to paint and draw, she only took up art full-time after losing her job in 2018. Since then, she has become a successful still life artist, renowned for her ability to capture the glint of light reflecting off glass and metal. ansdebije.nl ▸
My early paintings were somewhat surreal.
In retrospect, the Design Academy course didn’t get me what I wanted. Drawing and painting lessons were not the most important ones there, they were just subjects to support the design process. In the 90s, I started free painting, together with a number of others who are still my painting friends to this day. For the first 15 years, we worked under the leadership of the Eindhoven artist, Hans Fooy. After his passing, in 2005, I continued to paint weekly with a small group of friends. We taught ourselves by looking at art and trying different techniques and mediums. I painted all kinds of things – more abstract than the work I produce now.
I thought oil paint was too expensive.
I also thought it was a hassle because of having to clean your brushes with solvents. So, at first, I painted with acrylic on large canvases. It was only when I decided to work on a smaller format that I switched to oil paint and realised the objects for still life were available in my house: crockery, fruit and glassware, for example. I also regularly went out to thrift stores to find new things.
I consider myself very self-disciplined.
I paint every day and in early 2019 I discovered Daily Paintworks (dailypaintworks.com) to promote my work. In the first 18 months, almost nothing happened in terms of sales, although I received more and more visitors to my gallery website. In December 2019, I created an Instagram account which worked fantastically well. I still don’t know much about Instagram and have no idea why I attract so many followers. I don’t do anything special: I just regularly post my daily paintings. I am lucky that I am currently sold out every day, with people waiting for my next piece of work.
Everywhere I go, I look with a ‘painter’s eye.’
Can I paint that?
