Johnny Beerens is a Dutch artist living in Breskens, the Netherlands. In his generally great monumental and at the same time minute artworks he tries to evoke reality as intensely and tangibly as possible which is something completely and essentially different from reproducing reality as precisely as possible. Also notable are his large wall paintings.
Beerens’ works are several times an ode to the sea, the tides, the power of nature and the cycle of live. It’s about eternal values. He uses, among other things, materials such as shells, shell-fragments, fossil shark’ teeth, nylon yarn from washed-up fishing nettings and other materials and processes this in self-made paper. With leafs, ropes and grid he sometimes makes die stamp or rielief embossing in the wet paper pulp. The paper acts as a connecting element between the representation of the environment and that environment itself.
His works are compounded and built up with complex and many layers and pieces of his handmade and hand-crafted papers painted by watercolour and diluted acrylic paint. Often with various other technics, surfaces and materials combined within one work. Such as drawing, scratching, cutting, gluing. Sawing, constucting, etching and partially fragments are painted in self-made egg tempera and oil paint.
