It can be the streets in a French city, where people stroll with a beret on their heads, but it is really Eindhoven. Wout De Zeeuw paints the Eindhoven streets and buildings in a ‘romantic way’. In a week he will have his own exhibition.
The brushes are already ready in his computer room at home in the Meerhoven district. As a computer programmer, Wout is behind his screen all day, but in his spare time he is behind the canvas. He first goes by bike through Eindhoven in search of a suitable place. His bicycle bag contains his paint items and a small camping chair. “Then I sit there for an hour or two, three and then I will take a study and a few photos.”
“The watercolor dries and that dictates your pace.”
That study is a small painting of watercolor, a watercolor. At home he makes a larger and more extensive version. That costs it two to three days. Painting is certainly not relaxing for Wout. “It is quite intensive, because you dry aquarel and that dictates your pace. You have to work quite well. So in that respect it is not relaxing, but it does give me a lot of satisfaction.”
He has already made thirty paintings with the theme of the city of Eindhoven. He recorded the Evoluon and the Philips Stadium, but also streets that are not so well known. “It doesn’t have to be Efteling or such a beautiful city like Utrecht. It doesn’t have to be a beautiful building either. The composition must be right. As long as the shapes coincide, and it is important how the light falls on it. That determines for me then whether I can make a beautiful painting out of it.”
“I want to learn how a good painting works.”
As a child he drew a lot. After that it was quiet for a long time and since 2015 he has been making watercolors. Wout opens a large drawer of his closet. There is a huge pile of paper. It is the watercolors that he has made in the last ten years. One by one he puts the works on Eindhoven on the floor in his living room. The artificial pieces are not framed. Wout takes photos that he shares on his website and on his Instagram page.
He sold one painting, while that was not the plan. It is the street with, among other things, the coffee house, close to the Philips Stadium. “It is a nostalgic corner and I tried to bring in a nostalgic feeling. The owners of the coffee house saw it passing by on Instagram and so I actually sold it by accident.”
Wout would like to live quite part -time, but that is certainly not his main goal. “I don’t need financially. For me it is mainly to get the satisfaction out of painting, from the process. And to learn how a good painting works. I am curious about that.”
The contrast with his daily work as a computer programmer is great. “This is nice as a balance, as a counterpart for very precise, mathematical work. Behind the screen it is very precisely, but for the watercolors there is not really a formula. It is often a matter of following your intuition and feeling.”
The exhibition will be in Vitalis de Horst/Kronehoef in Eindhoven from Friday 28 March for a month.
