Untitled (Camouflage) Painting

Maarten van den Bos’s paintings evoke the modernist expressive way of handling materials, he is fascinated with the ambiguity of the human form, often taking inspiration from his everyday surroundings such as newspaper clippings, observations of nature and through watching films. Predominantly working within painting and sculpture, through his works he is interested in reinventing the possibilities of visual language which is inspired not only by his upbringing in Holland and the urban landscape of London, but also the corporeal textures of nature as explored in his first degree in Biology. Van den Bos’s often multifaceted approach to making works and weaving mediums sees images as a starting point for his works - procured over a decade from a variety of sources and used as a way of creating new images and metaphors that can be explored. Van den Bos’s use of materials have often been observed through the use of “a dry brushstroke the paintings become more and more like making a drawing with charcoal or soft pencil, the resistance of raw canvas like that of rough paper...this forces him to make changes to the image within a short span of time but also allows for rapid overpainting.” (Winsor & Newton artist feature) In 2012 van den Bos graduated from Chelsea College of Art with a MA (Hons) in Fine Art. His works have been shown extensively in a number of exhibitions in the United Kingdom and The Netherlands including at the Institute of Contemporary Art, London; Oriel Davies Gallery, Wales; Spike Island, Bristol; Appels Gallery, Amsterdam; Bussey Building, London; and A.P.T Gallery, London amongst others. His works were part of the 2013 Bloomberg New Contemporaries and has been published within Emergent Magazine; The Independent; Nom de Strip and has appeared on various websites including Winsor and Newton, Art Lyst and Galleries Now. His works are part of the Soho House collection in Barcelona, Spain. He lives and works between London (UK) and Bussum (NL).