UPPER PLAYGROUND

THE FREEDOM TO CREATE WITH LIKE-MINDED PEOPLE

After having worked in the publishing industry for 15 years as a marketeer and publisher, I started my own company UPPER PLAYGROUND (which is now my artist name) in 2018 for freelance projects on marketing, publicity and events for authors & publishers, and to have more time for my own work as an artist. In 2022 I decided to solely focus on my art. I’m now creating daily: painting, spraypainting, writing, drawing, creating my up-cycle pieces (mostly leather, clothes and bags now) and my unshackle-bracelets and -necklaces, and just starting out with ceramics and woodworking.

THE CREATIVE POWER OF ART

I’m interested in, influenced by, inspired by, love to work with Streetart and Urban Art, Japanese Superflat, Popart, Urban Vinyl Art and 3D art, manga and tattoo-art. I’ve always been fascinated with streetart. I look out for it wherever I am. In my own neighbourhood, when I walk around in my own city (Amsterdam) and when I’m traveling. I always seem to know where to find it, wherever I am. On lampposts and signposts, on bridges and structures, in those side-streets nobody seems to be interested in, whole streets fully dedicated to streetart. The beauty, the fun, the meaning, the messages, the call for action, the call for change.

MY WORK AS A SPAYPAINTER

I love streetart, stencil-art, tags and graffiti art. I myself started out using spraypaint on paper and canvas, still being a bit shy for trying it out in the streets. I used to visit an amazing spraypaint shop in Amsterdam, Henxs, just to look at their amazing collection of spraypaint cans and posca markers, books on streetart and their skateboard clothes. Always made me happy. My favourite shops have always been the ones that combine (street)art, books, music (preferably with someone behind a turntable) , graphic novels, vinyl art and skateboard fashion and accessories. That’s where the edge of the groove is. Anywhere in the world.

One day I just asked the guy behind the counter of Henxs to set me up with a starter-kit for spraypainting. He gave me some tips on how to spraypaint at home (water basis), some sjablones to try out, and six colours of spraypaint. And I was lost. For half a year I spraypainted and spraypainted. Trying out different materials, from different sorts and colours of paper, like crazy rolls of wallpaper, Japanese paper, sandpaper, sun bleach-paper, carbon paper, and fabrics, boxes, vinyl art poppets, and of course canvas and canvas board.

I design my stencils and sjablones with acrylpaint and Posca marker. First I try out different designs on paper, then I create a stencil from plastic and start experimenting with the design for a while with spraypaint. I now often use those designs again as a base for my canvas acrylpaint portraits.

Click on the links below to see some of my series of spraypaintings: Andy Warhol, Clint Eastwood, Salvador Dali, Miles Davis and Frida Kahlo, ‘Faces’, ‘Serious Man’, ‘Skull Art‘, ‘Gorillaz‘, ‘Self Portret‘.

‘click here for my Posca Black & White Popart series’

MY WORK AS A PAINTER – STARTING OUT

In 2014 I started experimenting with pencil-drawings of the amazing black & white portret-photo’s of Anton Corbijn, which helped me to discover and develop my portret-skills. A year later, again with the help of a wonderful artshop that unfortunately doesn’t exist anymore, I set myself up with 10 different colours of acrylpaint, 10 brushes and some good quality paper. My paintings were then mostly figures (I cannot really call them human :). I just put my brush down to see where it would end up. And then started experimening a bit with postures and emotions. They are very cute, and or strange, and or funny, and I still love looking at them.

I LOVE POSCA

I really love working with acrylpaint Posca markers. I use it to make spraypaint stencils, but also love to use it to create the first designs of new ideas I have. I now use it in almost all my paintings, combined with spraypaint, acrylpaint and wasco.

UPPER PLAYGROUND SIGNED UP!

In 2022 I decided to solely focus on my art and I stopped my projects for publishers and authors. I’m now daily painting, spray painting, writing, drawing, creating my up-cycle pieces (mostly leather, clothes and bags now) and unshackle-bracelets and -necklaces, and just started out with ceramics and woodworking.
I mostly work from my own home in Amsterdam. Two days a week I work in an atelier or studio that I share with four other artists in a wonderful creative neighbourhood with other painters, designers, woodworkers and musicians.

MY STENCIL ART AND COLLAGE ART ON CANVAS

I experiment a lot with the combination of text and images and with bits and pieces from magazines, paint left-overs, pieces I find on the street (like a dented BMW emblem that is now an earring), combined with acrylpaint, spraypaint, posca marker, glitter powder and glue, you name it. I never know where I will end up. A wonderful proces.

MY ACRYLIC PORTRAITS AND DISORTED FACES ON CANVAS

I’m painting quite a lot of portraits now-a-days. I start out with a rough sketch on the canvas using wasco pencil and then put layer over layer of acryl paint over each-other, sometimes using a paintknive. Until it is … finished, which it never really is. The wonder of the moment the face really appears is still amazing.

I also call them My Distorted Faces. They are a bit crazy sometimes. Still evolving 🙂

MY BIGFOOT PAINTINGS

I love my Bigfoot paintings. In the beginning they where a combination of scraps of magazines, acrylpaint and Posca marker. A bit Poparty. The Bigfoot now reappears in all kinds of paintings.
The themes of my blue Big Foot paintings are duality, enlightenment, freedom and equality.

DUALITY

Duality is a theme that keeps on reappearing in my paintings. Two (or more) faces in the same body, male/female, female/male, male/male, female/female.

ABSTRACT GRAFF

I just started experimenting with abstracts on bigger canvasses (100 cm and bigger) with spraypaint, acrylpaint, posca markers, wasco, paint-knives, dripping tools. Wonderful way to experiment with paint-knives, dripping tools, different use of my brushes and all sorts of paint.

PETITS LITTLE MONSTRES

My Petits Little Monstres, yes ok, everyone does them, but I love them just the same. I use acrylpaint, spraypaint, poscamarker and wasco.

To be totally clear, they are not really monsters who try to scare us, but it is actually the other way around: they are little birds scared shitless by something (by us?).

MY PIECES – MY UNSHACKLE BRACELETS AND NECKLACES

I started creating bracelets and necklaces when I lost the shackle of one of my ‘freedom’ bracelets of the Dutch brand Pig & Hen (see first picture). Very sad moment. Because I love them a lot (I have three). They stand for my freedom and I call them my unshackle bracelets. So I looked in my toolbox and sewing box for something that I could use as a ‘fixture’. I got a bit carried away and before I knew it I had created three bracelets myself, using rope, buttons and different kinds of fixtures and buckles. Loved making them and loved how they looked. Kind of cool!

So that’s how my bracelet-making-spree, and then my necklaces, started. I went on to visit all kinds of bead-shops (they’re crazy!) and button-shops in Amsterdam and visit second hand markets. Did you know that in bead-shops it is normal that you note down all the beads and their prices that you put in your little basket? Well, I didn’t. Of course I had a very full little basket, so I had to go back and look up all the prices and count the beads. But well…

My pieces