Colourful Abstract Paintings. Get your own Statement Art directly from the artist

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Hi, I am John Dutchart.

A Dutch Abstract artist.

I create art that states who you are: your own Statement Art

Art that speaks to you as well as about you, that's what I make as a creative abstract painter. Art that tells who you are, your style and class, your life. My paintings combine the right colours, structure in a unique dynamic abstract painting that changes your living or working environment. From a normal room or workspace to a place you love to stay and receive friends or where you can work and consult with colleagues in an inspiring way.

I believe that the style of art hanging on the wall says a lot about who owns it. Its style, colours and colour transitions, its format. Whether the art “blends” in or if it dares to be completely detached.

I believe that the style of art hanging on the wall says a lot about who owns it. The colour transitions, structure, the format. Whether the art “blends” in, or if it dares to be completely detached from its environment.

Show who you are, make your statement, with a beautiful abstract painting on the wall.

My art for you is colourful, dynamic, daring and emphatically present. My art will never blend into the wall it hangs against. On the contrary; it will attract attention and cannot be ignored.

You can recognize a John DutchArt painting by its appearance; guts, self-confidence, unique and certainly not the 13-in-a-dozen type. But most of all, it will make you feel like you are at home. With beautiful inspiring art on your wall that you love to look at and enjoy daily.

I feel lucky with the skills I have as a creative artist and I am proud of the artwork I create.

But It took a long run, from a very different background.

Professionally, but also in my spare time I am very passionate about abstract art. Looking at it and creating it. I really enjoy it and I am proud when I can put my signature under a new beautiful painting. A painting that I see myself in, but that also says something about you when it hangs on your wall. My painting is your Statement Art; a painting that tells something about you, who you are, what your taste is, what your style is, how you look at life.

As a painter I am always bursting with creative ideas. They come up while I want to go to sleep and in the morning I wake up with them.

Sometimes i drive my wife crazy because I can be busy with painting from getting up to going to sleep. But it is my drive, my passion, my way of expressing myself, my hobby and my profession.

The most diverse events can give me inspiration as an artist. One time, after visiting acquaintances, I made a series of paintings inspired by the colour scheme in their kitchen in combination with the fantastic and colourful food they served us that evening. Scientific articles about, for example, DNA or a phenomenon in space, can also inspire me enormously to give form to my feelings and impressions on canvas or wooden panel.

As a child I loved artistic crafting, drawing and painting. I liked nothing more while in primary school, like a lot of children, by the way.

When it came time for high school, I heard from everyone that it would be a meager existence as an artist and that it was much better for me to choose a profession with more future prospects. Enter the technique. And in retrospect, that was a justified, but also valuable advice, because it ultimately created the financial scope to go for art at a later age.

During my youth I was warned; an artist has a meager existence.

Better Become a technician.

So I focused on computer technology, which was also high on my interest list. I followed the first college in Technical Computer Science that was given in the Netherlands. I immersed myself in computer chips and software, and gradually lost the connection with painting. The interest in art always remained, but I was not painting my self anymore.

I was boarding in Venlo and had a great student time. My studies were interesting and fun, and so were my fellow students.

I developed the ambition to go to Japan to graduate over there in computer science. In those years Japan was the economic frontrunner and the promised land in the field of computer technology. Companies like IBM first released their computer systems in Japan before introducing them to the USA or EU. So that's where I wanted to be; in Japan.

At that time, there was no e-mail, nor the Internet as we know it today. So the companies and organizations that I wanted to approach for my graduation thesis, all had to be approached by letter.

And so it took an average of a month before I got an answer back from Japan. And the answer, if any, was always rejection. I didn't speak Japanese, English was hardly spoken in Japan and a student from the distant Netherlands was of course very risky and expensive. Back then, the plane tickets were more expensive and living accommodations in Japan were incredibly expensive. And then to take on an adventure with a student from Venlo?

After 1 year and many postage stamps further I had made no progress. I had approached so many companies, Chambers of Commerce, Trade Organisations, The Dutch and Japanese embassies, it had all yielded to nothing.

My time in Japan has defined me. Living in a completely different culture, with sometimes bizarre habits, taught me to open my mind. Just as I found some things bizarre and incomprehensible about Japan, so the Japanese told me about what they couldn’t understand or belief about some things in our Western culture. I am grateful for my life experiences of those days. I learned a lot in Japan, about myself, about people, about perception. And also about painting.

In my spare time I often visited a Japanese temple in the mountains. Because of the simplicity, which was at the same time it’s strength, in the designs and drawings that I saw there, my interest in painting flourished again. It made me think back to my early ambitions to become a painter.

After graduating from college I went back to Japan, all my belongings in 1 suitcase, with the thought of staying there and building my life there. Fate, however, ruled otherwise.

My father turned out to have cancer. Terrible disease. I returned to the Netherlands to spend his last months with him, my mother and sister. Life went on after that, of course, but with a twist that I had never expected before.

In 2001, an opportunity presented itself to become an independent entrepreneur when a machine factory was put up for sale. After several intensive months with banks and advisors, I was able to acquire the company. Together with an old fellow student.

The company had been making losses for 10 years and was technically bankrupt. It used outdated technology to produce products with little added value in a very competitive market. Not an attractive takeover candidate.

But I come from an ordinary working-class family, I wasn't wealthy, so you don't have that much to choose from.

For the next 12 years I had to fight hard and put all my time into the company. It gave me a weary soul and gray hair.

And obviously, there was no more time to do anything as an artist, there was no time for anything other than work at all.

Those days I walked through the factory every day for a chat with the crew. I told them I was jealous of the work they did. They worked with tubes, plates, screws and bolts, a welding machine and a milling machine and continued to build every day. And after a month or two there was a shiny impressive machine, so big that it won’t fit in a living room, or sometimes not even in a house. And I would tell them again “what a wonderful profession you have, you are an artist, you really create something”.

They would just smile, probably surprised that I, the director, envied them. But when I looked at my desk at the end of my workday, that desk always looked the same as it did when I started that day.

I realised how much I longed to create something physically by myself. Something that you can touch and hold, something you can look at, something originating from creativity.

So I got back to work to support entrepreneurs in the development of their innovative products. Something that gave me a lot of satisfaction because I could often really make a useful contribution from my own experiences as an entrepreneur. And I was happy to be amongst people again and to matter again. People called me and emailed me and needed my help.

But I consciously only started working 4 days a week, so that I also had more time for a painting now and then and experimenting with painting techniques.

That was the moment I decided to become a proffesional Abstract artist

I started painting … and then continued until 10 p.m. Before I fell asleep I thought about how I would continue with my artwork. When I woke up in the morning I wanted to get back to painting a.s.a.p., even before breakfast.

Only then did I really get clear; this is what I want to do every day. This is what really gets me excited, this is the creating that I missed so much in the past, that I envied others for.

That was the moment when I decided to become a painter and turn my passion into my profession. Even without art academy, without an arts diploma and without a network in the art world. But with full confidence in myself and my painting and awareness that from now on I could be painting every day.

Of course, such a step is not without financial risk.

But my past experience has taught me that I always manage, even under difficult and risky circumstances. I don't care if you drop me in the jungles of Brazil. Give me a canvas or wood panel and some paint and it will make you an astonishing work of art. Your own Statement Art. That is what I have full confidence in.

People used to express their surprise when they saw a painting of me in my house, if I had really painted it myself, and where I got my inspiration from. And after my first corona paintings for our new home, a casual visitor shouted “this painting style is what I have been looking for, for years” and I received my first commission for a work of art. Even before I had made the decision to become a professional painter.

I noticed that people were looking for a work of art they could identify themselves with. An abstract painting that tells something about them. About who they are, their style, their challenge in life, the statement they want to make.

That's how I see my abstract paintings; Statement Art of the person with whom it hangs on the wall. And I am a proud artist if I have been able to realise someone's Statement Art with special shapes, colours, styles and textures.

Someone told me of her disappointment with that painting they had bought in a gallery for a lot of money. How beautiful it looked there, bathed in light. How disappointed she is now that at home it looks a bit dull and barely noticeable.

want Art on the wall that says something about you? Your own statement art?

I didn't visit Japan again until 30 years later, including my favourite temples in the mountains. The impression it made on me then, it made on me once more.

I had the opportunity and privilege to spend the night in the temples with the monks and join the fire rituals with them at 5:30 in the morning. An experience and an inspiration for the rest of my life.

It's not easy to describe, but for me these experiences in life add to the way I respect life. And so also in the way I express myself in my painting. Everything you experience has a place, has a consequence, exerts its influence somewhere. I experience this clearly when I am painting as an abstract artist

Fire ceremony with Japanese monks early in the morning

Minister Jan Terlouw hands over first prize

After my return to the Netherlands I worked for multinationals with computer technology and I travelled a lot and spent time with nice colleagues and clients in inspiring cities all over the world. In my career I developed as an entrepreneur and enjoyed the entrepreneurship. The freedom of decision and the ability to take responsibility gave me a lot of energy.

John with machines produced by his company

John painting on the balcony of the art gallery

John in front of paintings "Vibrant city life"

John as consultant for innovative companies

I took more than a year for myself, for the things I always wanted to do, and time for the people around me to whom I had given too little attention for too long. I had time for creativity again, was able to pick up the thread again as a painter, but got little on the canvas in that year. The transition to so much free time had come too suddenly, I was unprepared and I missed the contact with people. I especially missed the feeling of being needed for something, of being part of something, of contributing to something.

John working on a series of 5 connected paintings

Because art collectors have asked me frequently about my inspiration, I wrote a small article about it. If you are interested you can read more about it here.

But I had my sights set on Japan. I took the plunge and wrote a letter to former Prime Minister Van Agt who worked at the European Embassy in Japan at the time. And thanks to his recommendations, some doors opened up and I managed to travel to Tokyo as an ambitious student for my graduation project.

I learned a lot in Japan, about myself, about people, about perception.

Life continued and i developed into an ambitious entrepeneur.

As unexpected as the opportunity to take over a company presented itself, equally as sudden the question arose whether I wanted to sell the company. I had given 12 years of my life to build and rebuild the company and was also somewhat tired of the continuous hard work. So I agreed to open up the possibility to sell, and 3 months later -with unexpected great relief, deep in my heart- the deal was closed.

But it gave me tremendous satisfaction. We received praise and appreciation, won prestigious awards and further expanded the company through acquisitions and joint ventures. And the hard work eventually paid off; we developed patented technology and sold our food processing machines from Santiago de Chile to Moscow, from Toronto to Sydney.

I took a year for myself, and for people around me to whom I had paid too little attention for too long.

Until March 2020, when the corona pandemic came and I had less work and much less travel time. This allowed even more time for art painting.

We had moved a year ago and I had promised my wife to make a series of paintings for our new house, at least 1 for each room. That had not happened until now, but the corona lockdowns provided me with a lot of additional time to live up to my promise

Didn't I find the move to become a professional painter scary?

If you hang a work of art of mine on the wall, it will certainly stand out. I am a painter who works with bright, vibrant colours and striking patterns. My abstract painting is your Statement Art and it will certainly be clearly present in the room where you hang it. Even if there is no spotlight on it.

Take a look around my website and get inspiration from the paintings sold.

Or listen to your gut feeling and be surprised by the available artworks.

And of course you are always welcome in my art gallery for a viewing by appointment, because a photo cannot show what the painting looks like in real life. Or come by for a free and non-binding personal art advice, directly from me as an artist.

I enjoy talking about art and hearing what you are looking for in a work of art.

Leave your details below if you would like me to contact you, or if you have any questions. You can of course also call me.

Curious about how I get my inspiraion? Then read on via

What inspires me

Curious what others wanted to know about me and my art? Then reading on via

6 Questions, 6 Answers

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