Artist Collection

Ludo Knaepkens

Ludo Knaepkens, born 17/05/1962, is a painter living and working in Hoogstraten, Belgium.

He has been drawing and painting all his life. His mother painted and his father was in the transportation business. The genes he inherited clearly influenced his life and work and are irrevocably linked to it. As the eldest in the family, he rolled automatically into his father’s business, but the advice to postpone painting until later, he ignored that one. But, due to the busy job with a lot of foreign travel, he only graduated from IKO Art Academy at the end of his professional career. In addition, he also completed the training of art gallery owner: operator.

In his studio he paints with acrylic and oil paint, but he also likes to experiment with mixed techniques. Over the years his style has evolved from romantic Impressionism to graphic, colourful pop art. The freedom to use colours, to mix images, implementing humour and texts in the work is something that has attracted him since his childhood. Despite the fact that he enjoys exhibiting, he experiences the greatest passion through painting and seeing the growth process of the work.

His favourite examples are Norman Rockwell, E. Hopper, Gil Elvgren and comics from Spirou Publishers, Tintin, … Not only his passion for oldtimers, classic racers, trucks, vintage motorcycles and pinups is an important source of inspiration, but also contemporary images or events, old photos, memories, music and lyrics can inspire him. Often he makes compositions of images or he mixes his models with a strange, unexpected background. The own use of colour combined with working with pixels makes his work graphic, sometimes even photographic from a distance. The entire image feels very lively and almost three-dimensional due to the appropriate use of colour. But besides the canvas he also experimented with other materials, such as vinyl records as canvas or creating work in mixed media.

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