Painter Daan Koens was homeless but is now an Instagram phenomenon

Three and a half years ago it was unthinkable that the Rotterdam artist Daan Koens (28) would have his own exhibition in a gallery. “I had hit rock bottom then. I thought, fuck, man. I’m just going to live on the street or maybe end up in jail.” Koens has been a ghost citizen for three years after he was evicted from his house in the summer of 2019. “Indebted and stupid, stupid, stupid and young,” he says, shaking his head. Now his oil paintings are selling like hot cakes on his Instagram account.

Days before the opening of his first solo exhibition in the Rotterdam gallery Westerkadekunst, Koens is still finishing paintings. “I sometimes find it difficult to plan things in the long term, so I have to do a lot at the last minute.” Is it not inconvenient to transport a wet cloth? No. He has often enough with it in the Rotterdam metro. That went fine too.

The fumes from our cups of Nespresso mix with the scents of oil paint and turpentine in his studio in a former coal-fired power station in the Rotterdam harbor area. Turpentine can be bad for your health if you inhale too much of it. But if you ventilate, nothing is wrong. We’re not gonna die today.”

In the room, a dozen smoking women stare from the canvases at the viewer. “Many of these blonde women are inspired by my ex-girlfriend, to cope with the break up.” Koens paints expressionistic and colorful. His portraits of women are almost hedonistic. A symbol of his “carefree indulgence in drink, drugs and nightlife.” But there is also a dark side. Here and there, made-up lugubrious figures appear. At times you can see Cubism in its idiosyncratic style. “At one point I was very inspired by Picasso.”

Bailiff

Koens was born in Amsterdam and grew up on Curaçao. At the age of 19 he went to live on his own in Rotterdam. When envelopes from the bailiff started appearing, he simply didn’t open them because they were scary. “Then the debts piled up into a gigantic monster.” No one knew about it until he ended up on the street. Then he first went to sleep with his former girlfriend and then in his studio.

For as long as he can remember, he was drawing. For his admission to the Willem de Kooning Academy, he exchanged his pencil for a brush in 2016. “I then painted with acrylic paint, just from the Action. The one of two euros.” After a few months he stopped the study. “I mainly had to write reports, but I wanted to learn how to paint well.” Then he taught himself by doing it. “I now use oil paint, because it looks better when it dries. I learned along the way how to get a specific color by mixing it. I also started buying books. Here, Oil Painting Techniques and Materials. This guy named Harold Speed ​​explains very well how to paint with oils.”

In the time that he did not have his own home, he continued to paint between baking pizza at various catering establishments. When he sold three paintings for two thousand euros at a friend’s second-hand shopping event, he thought: “Fuck it, I’ll stop working. I spend all my time painting and getting better, making something I can be proud of.” During the pandemic, he started selling his work through social media. Young people in particular were interested. They saw his paintings passing by on the socials, or heard about them in circles of friends.

Graphic design

He has had a home again for a little over six months, all thanks to his paintings. Despite his run-ins with government agencies when he lived as a ghost citizen, he has to admit: “Those agencies always have a sick graphic design. Everything is standardized. It’s a nice coat of paint to hide the actual dementor shit that’s behind it.” He has to taste. Dementors are the prison guards from Harry Potter who torment the inmates by sucking the happiness out of them.

But how is he actually? “I am happy with my life at the moment. It’s going in the right direction. I’ve been through tough times.” He starts laughing. „Tough times never last, only tough people last”, a quote from an internet meme.