Biography of Onno de Graaf

Painter, graphic artist. Born in Alblasserdam in 1956.

Onno de Graaf creates images from the tangible environment in which he prefers to live. He makes simple, but ingenious tales about animals and machines, over water and fire and air and Earth. Onno De Graaf creates its own world in which everything is possible: a cat rises up and transforms into a helicopter and a fish turns into a submarine or in a can of sardines. Helpless against the animals play the role of the artist. Prominently in the work of Onno de Graaf is the spontaneous nature. He uses a visual language that is recognizable and makes all improvising the things that amuse him personally. Onno has just one technique: the monoprint. Come on glass layer by layer his images, they grow as trees, careful search they make their way to the most optimal way to development. Each print is the image again reviewed and analyzed, with certain parts have to disappear to make way for new ideas. The Japanese paper Onno de Graaf are working press can sometimes be the burden of the thick layers of paint but hardly wear. Other times can be a drawing from some powerful lines with only a single key color. In a lively style Onno de Graaf depicts a world in which peace and activity in balance. You might call it primitive, on the border of the magic.