Rens Lipsius started painting in his teens converting his early love of nature to experimentation with camera and brush. Over the last three decades, he has completed a magisterial body of work guided by his approach to art as a total oeuvre. The work is widely shown in Rens Lipsius’ Ideal Artist Houses.
“In painting, I use all conceivable ways of working with paint. I like the accumulation of material — figurative and abstract, painterly and non-painterly — and the play of elements…with infinite possibilities for viewing the work.
I use studio equipment, even windows and walls, to provide material and light…
I use photography and video to contrast a different, more direct way of representation of what I paint.”
Polyptychs (Paris-Netherlands)
Polyptychs
These large important paintings were made at different locations, with reference to nature and urban environments, at different points in time.
I generally paint polyptychs or series of panels…I see my paintings as a sequence of unfolding planes or spaces…
Modular compositions, mixed media on individual panels, approximate total size 330cm x 460cm.
"This comes from observing nature… changing planes of vision open to interpretation; it’s never boring…and draws one in."
Great Water Reflections (Paris)
Great Water Reflections, 16 panels, 2019-2021, painted at the studio in Paris, France. 122x200 cm (except for three 122x180 cm), acrylic and oil on linen.
Over some years I had made photographs of reflections on ponds and lakes, mainly in the Netherlands and thus it was peat water, greenish, brown water. This series is the painterly result of these photographic notes.
To use an ultimate freedom of working, working on series is best. After I finish a layer I turn the work around when I continue on the next ones, they dry and I “forget them “. When I turn them around again, I am detached from them and can change completely of direction if desired. That’s how these paintings came about over a 3 year time span.
Water Reflections (NYC)
Water Reflections I & II, 1995-2000, NYC
The idea started with a work to be hung in a small space where the person present wouldn’t be able to see the painting frontally. This small space was an office, a workspace. Therefore, the person would see the painting from under an angle. I decided to work on the reflection of the surfaces of the painting. In this way one could look at it from an angle and see different more or less glossy surfaces, like reflections of light or wind on the surface of water.
Falling Sky I and II (NYC)
Falling Sky Paintings, oil on canvas , 180 cm x 200 cm (1994/1995 — 2000)
Diptychs (NYC-Paris)
Diptychs
"I always work on at least two panels at a time… And I am particularly happy when I notice a painterly glow uniting the two to make it a diptych…"
"There are 20 so far in the series, but actually they are all individual works…"
Oil and mixed media (such as, marble dust, wax medium, earth, metal, etc.), individual sizes (1995/96–2012)
Single panels (NYC)
Single Panels, these were all painted at the Varick Street Studio, NYC, the “Light Box”.
They are all in oil on linen, 200x90 cm
Studies After Rembrandt (NYC)
VOIDS (NYC)
A beautiful blue cobalt oil paint from my New York store made me want to work with this color only. I kept on brushing and brushing this color and titanium white.
I laid the canvases down on the floor and brushed endlessly a pure cobalt blue on one side into a pure titanium white on the other side. Dozens of soft, clean and wide brushes were on each side of the panels and once I had used them all I had to clean them in order to continue, otherwise the blue and white colors wouldn’t have remained so pure. The paint might look thin cause of the color but it is applied thickly. It is painted on a fine linen used for portrait and glued on a heavy duty canvas so it would provide a very flat, smooth and stable ground.
Big Blues (NYC)
Big Blues, a special series painted 1996-1999 in NYC
Large Turkish Blues (Paris)
11 panels painted at the Paris’ studio on the canal Saint Martin, 2018-2019, oil, acrylic, pencil, on linen glued on canvas, 200x122 cm.
In this exhibition they are presented with the most recent (sub-)series of Roses & Cauliflowers (30x30 cm, oil on linen), 2018-2019
Wandering Profiles (NYC)
Wandering Profile Paintings (2008/2009-2011), oil on canvas, 46 cm x 61 cm each
Nightscapes (Paris)
“Nightscapes” and other paintings are from the same time, 2018 -2019 and were painted at the Paris’studio on the canal Saint Martin.
Oil on linen, 40x40 cm
Figurative Works (NYC, Paris)
2005-2022, NYC, Paris.
Oil on linen, different sizes.
I have always enjoyed figurative works as much as abstract works. In matter of fact, to me it all makes part of the exploration of painting as a medium and there isn’t a clear border between them.
Large Standing Figures & Abstract Panels (NYC)
Large Standing Figures
Large Standing Figures were initially painted over a three-year period in 1999-2002 along with the same-size Abstract Panels and against the background of a major land-art project, The Light Observation Field ( Friesland, the Netherlands).
"I worked on the Figures at the Varick Street Studio in New York, always during the night. Painting without light gives a better sense of shape, of the volume in space."
Oil (occasionally mixed with marble dust) in glacis à l’huile on fine linen glued on canvas, each panel 122cm x 244cm (1999/2002-2010)
A figure to me is always a figure in a landscape, in space…
Abstract Panels
Abstract Panels work in parallel and in counterpoint to the Large Standing Figures: they are of the same size but at a different level of abstraction, the Panels were painted in daytime and the Figures—during the night.
"I was probably affected by my work on the Light Observation Field, and in order to capture the changes in light and material I saw there, I used all possible techniques of painting on the canvases spread on the studio floor in New York."
Abstract Panels were exhibited with the videos of the Light Observation Field running on small screens placed on cubes in front.
Oil and mixed media (such as marble dust, oil wax, etc.) on canvas, 122cm x 244cm each panel (1999/2002-2010).
"A figure to me is always a figure in a landscape, in space…"
Crouching Figures (NYC)
Crouching Figures, 2004-2008, oil, oil stick and acrylic on linen, 125x90 cm. They were done at the Varick Street Studio, the Light Box, NYC.
Roses & Cauliflowers (NYC-Amsterdam-Paris)
Roses & Cauliflowers - an on-going series since 2006, acrylic and oil on canvas, 30x30cm.
From the Varick Street Series (NYC)
From the Varick Street Series ( NYC-studio):
Oil with marble dust over acrylic on linen, 180x180cm ( 6 parts of 60x90 cm each), 2000-05, NYC
New York Paintings (90s)
Paintings from the 90’s, NYC, Varick Street Studio, “the Light Box”.
Early Works (Paris, NL)
Early works, 1982-1990
They were started in the loft space-studio on the Faubourg Saint Antoine, 75011 Paris and continued at the large Villa Riberolle studio, 75020 Paris. I completely renovated this old factory and it became the first Ideal Artist House.
The last works (with steel) were all done in the gentleman’s farm in Tynje, Friesland, Netherlands, where I converted the barn into a studio space .
1985-1990
In this second half of the 80’s I started a series of works made after the light (color) of the hours of the day. They were done in the barn-studio of the gentleman’s farm in Tynje, Friesland (NL). The final idea was to have them installed vertically in a space like the day unfolding in colors in front of you. Through the night and from dawn till dusk.
They can be seen separately in a horizontal way.