JAN COOLS

Working with the soak-stain technique, Cools applies heavily diluted acrylics directly onto raw, unprimed canvas, allowing the pigment to soak into the fabric and colours to spread and merge. He mixes colours directly on the canvas, responding to what emerges rather than following a predetermined composition. The paintings evolve through this process of making, with charcoal, dappled marks and strokes introducing new gestures and giving structure to forms that have taken shape almost unconsciously.

The title Sinuós evokes this sense of wandering, both in the movement of the paint across the canvas and in the artist’s own process of discovery. Rather than setting out to depict a particular landscape or image, Cools allows the paintings to find their own direction, leaving room for unexpected associations to surface.

“Sinuós is not simply a curving line; it is movement that breathes. My latest body of work explores fluidity as the meeting ground between nature, matter, and emotion. Departing from rigidity and absolute certainty, the works gathered here invite the viewer’s gaze to navigate subtle transitions, organic contours, and a quiet tension that never truly comes to rest.

Colour serves as both origin and anchor. Rather than imposing rigid structures, the works unfold through an intuitive rhythm, guided by an unconscious state of making where pigment and tone establish the emotional architecture of the room.

Moving between clarity and dissolution, the compositions reflect the fluid nature of recollection. While certain pieces hold closely to their original source—recognisable and direct—others have softened and abstracted with time, filtering lived experience through the lens of memory. What connects them for me is a shared tonal resonance: an atmosphere that asks the viewer not to dissect, but simply to encounter.

To engage with this work is to experience a way of thinking translated directly into hue and value. The initial impression is atmospheric—a quiet, ambient weight that fills the space before form fully emerges.On closer viewing, each canvas opens inward, revealing an autonomous world with its own internal logic. Characterised by restraint and understated conviction, these pieces do not demand resolution or over-intellectualised reading. They exist to be felt rather than deciphered, offering an open space where meaning is completed only by the viewer’s own presence and perception.”