About FADEW

Dear art lover,

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I am an artist and painter based in Harderwijk, the Netherlands. I made my first paintings and sculptures more than thirty years ago. As a young artist, I was given some remarkable opportunities, but ultimately chose the security of a different life. There were responsibilities, a young family, and choices that at the time felt logical and, perhaps, wiser. Yet the desire to paint never disappeared. It remained quietly present in the background, like a conversation that had never quite reached its conclusion.

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Now, many years later, I have picked up that conversation again. Not out of nostalgia, but from the conviction that time creates not only distance, but also depth. The years have given me experience, new insights and, above all, a different way of looking at the world. I see that reflected in my work.

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For me, painting is a way of giving space and colour to what occupies my thoughts and to the things I have my own views on. A way of exploring questions to which I am not necessarily looking for clear-cut answers.

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My paintings grow out of an ongoing fascination with connection, (dis)belief, and the conditioning of the collective. I wonder how beliefs come into being. How realities are shaped. How people and groups connect themselves to ideas, systems and narratives. And how individual experiences relate to something larger than ourselves.

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I primarily work in abstraction because abstraction leaves room. Once an image is completely explained, I feel that some of its power disappears. I do not want to prescribe meaning, but to open up possibilities. My work therefore does not ask for agreement, but for attention. Not for being right, but for curiosity. And I believe that art is an invitation to conversation, leaving room for reflection and interpretation.

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Warm regards,

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François Arsène de Winter

And, to keep it nice and simple - FADEW.