Hans Broek, Parte Un

Hello, hello!

I am oh so very happy to introduce the first-ever entry on upstART Brooklyn! This has been the result of the much-needed encouragement of friends, and the endless support (and insufferable pushiness!) of my dad, Zev. Thank you so much for the advice and that nifty new voice recorder. Much appreciated.

That, and a girl can only watch The Real Housewives of New Jersey and create new interpretations of a grilled cheese sandwich for so long before she feels the need to do something a little more fruitful.

I would also like to take a moment to thank the many managers and owners of various eateries and restaurants throughout the city and Brooklyn, who in firing my sorry scatter-brained ass from their establishment drove home the message that I have better things to do with my time than dropping food on people and tripping over their ill-behaved spawn who play hide-and-seek under the tables... and also gave me enough free time to get this thing up and running.

And so this morning I packed up my supplies, hopped on my bike and rode over to Greenpoint Ave, where across from an auto shop and a wholesale beer distributor is the studio of one Hans Broek. As I plod up the stairs, he calls “Hallo!” from several flights up. Though no one would mistake him for a recent graduate, his jeans, Pumas, and loose-in-a-flattering-way striped polo showcase a slender form and youthful energy. He greets me warmly, and leads through the serpentine hallway to his workspace. I delight in the smell of paint, the splattered floors, the surprisingly orderly mess, and note the Stella and Sierra Nevada Pale Ale peeking out from under his desk; leftovers from the visit of another artist friend (Whose taste, might I say, is not half bad. Unfortunately, this studio did not come equipped with refrigeration).

He sits me down in a splintering wicker armchair which, I’m afraid to say did not survive the duration of our interview. I blame the aforementioned grilled cheese.

Originally from Amsterdam, Hans’ formative years were spent in a very different place. “L.A. was the total opposite of where I came from… Amsterdam is a little village, and the art world I was a part of was as big as a bar, and the moment you left that bar, the art world almost didn’t exist anymore. So, it’s very small, and L.A. is of course a very expansive city with many different cultures. It was all new, there was no Dutch-ness at all. The art world was a little smaller than in New York, and more focused on building up its own kind of culture and identity.” Hans explored the relationship between nature and civilization in his geometric landscapes and depictions of modern architecture in a beautiful, though inhospitable environment. “Without air conditioning and the Colorado River to tap the water from, you would die in two days. For humans to live in L.A. is one step away from settlement of Mars…It’s a balance between nature and civilization that didn’t really fit. You have all of these brush fires in LA, and yet people want to build a house in the middle of it, but it doesn’t really belong there. It’s not a place where humans naturally belong” Despite the view that building a vast Metropolis in the middle of desert may not exactly what Mother Nature intended, the industrial-looking apartment building in the center of Universal City (170 x 170, oil on linen) seems to enhance rather than disturb the spread of wild brush. The scene is quiet, even harmonious.
Universal City - 1997

Untitled - 1996


There are many different landscapes in the artist’s portfolio, ranging from sprawling, panoramic views to scenes with just a few buildings, allowing him to adjust to a new environment so different from his home. “It was my way of trying to understand the city, to digest its expanse”
Colorado Boulevard, 2002

Sketch for Nightpainting - 1999

San Fernando Valley, Mulholland Drive, 1997

Urban Drift - 2003

While the LA period was rather successful, ten years of isolation, both from the other denizens of Los Angeles, and in his landscapes, would inevitably push him to newer pastures. “I had done everything I wanted to do with landscapes for the moment, and the work was getting more and more reduced. The life was disappearing out of the work. It was becoming very formal and distanced, and detached from human experience. I just wanted to zoom into human activity and dynamics.”
And so Hans left LA for New York. It is hard to say which is more dramatic: his change of environment, or the change in his style. Hans’ work began to feature both formal and more intimate portraits, scenes from Lynch and Kubrick movies, as well as from classical masterpieces reinvigorated with new life with all of their roughness and gritty emotion.
Kill that Bastard Actaeon - 2007

Sketch for Reality - 2006

Party - 2007

Though there is a great diversity of image and subject matter in his New York paintings, Hans has a very specific process in how he turns inspiration into a work of art. “I love film and photographic media, but I’m also inspired by sculpture and Old Master paintings. You start with a photographic image that is being reduced, usually because the nuances of color in the photograph don’t really have to be painted out. So there is a reduction of color, a little reduction in shape, but also of line, and of simplified forms. So the image becomes a little bit flatter, how I like paintings to be, so that you can see just a flat surface that’s not too illusionistic.”
Sketch for Family - 2006

Sketch for Family - 2006

Aesthetic differences aside, Hans tells how this style of work is much more satisfying on a very visceral level. “With the landscapes, everything is much more controlled, all of the details, and the colors. It was successful, but I like the opposite of control, the irrationality, the ugliness of painting. I think it’s richer and more complete. Perhaps it is less pleasant to look at, but I can think that can be a good thing.” He does not seem to have a strict guide as to who or what he paints: "I have memories, where this image struck me for some reason. They tell me about something I am interested. Why I am interested is not really rational all the time, it’s kind of an irrational drive. Later on you can figure out why that drive was so strong." It is clear, however, that he finds appeal in that which jars or disturbs the eye on some level.

I did note that there is something remarkable about Hans’ modern portraits, in the sense that whether he is painting a man or a woman, the expression or mood of the subject is never gender specific. There are no flirtatious, doe-eyed females or macho men. “Of course you always have women or men, but I want that the mood can be carried by either gender. I am more interested in these sorts of states.” The subject is thus always rendered as an enigma, no matter who it is. The artist’s own inner self acts as the common thread between all these different people. “In the portraits there is always some kind of psychological, human, emotional presence that relates to what I am experiencing at that moment, or something that I am.”
Velasquez - 2006

Isabella Rosselini - 2007


For more information on Hans and his work, please visit www.hansbroek.net