KOEN VAN DEN BROEK

Koen van den Broek is a prominent Belgian artist recognised for his unique approach to depicting space, architecture, and landscape through a contemporary lens. Born in 1973 in Bree, Belgium, van den Broek initially studied architecture before turning to painting—a foundation that deeply influences his artistic style. His work is characterised by an interplay of abstraction and realism, often highlighting urban landscapes, roads, and structural edges, reinterpreted with a striking attention to light, colour, and form.

For nearly three decades, van den Broek’s work focused on meticulously capturing location-specific scenes, blending place, photographic representation, and traditional oil painting on canvas. In 2023, however, he conceived a transformative approach that fundamentally reoriented his practice.

Rather than using conventional methods to depict his usual subjects—roads, highways, and urban motifs—van den Broek reimagined the canvas itself as a road. His new technique involves using materials typically reserved for marking lines on streets and highways, incorporating these directly into his paintings. This shift redefines the two surfaces—the road and the canvas—that previously served as separate arenas for his work. He now employs materials and methods from road marking—those used by municipal or state authorities—to physically inscribe his canvas, giving it a direct, tactile link to the road.

Using small, commercial machines designed for manual paint application, van den Broek creates precise lines and steady bands of colour—often whites, yellows, and reds. This process, echoing Jackson Pollock’s floor-based work from the 1940s, allows him to produce strips, fields, and shapes of colour through an even spray technique. Tar and bitumen are similarly used to bring structure, shape, and volume to his compositions.

This pivotal shift marks a significant reorientation in van den Broek’s work, leading to several new series, each exploring various aspects of this innovative approach. His canvases have evolved into their own landscapes, where elements of road codes are reimagined as autonomous aesthetic forms, resembling ribbons. The implications of van den Broek’s recent innovations, developed over the last eighteen months, call for thoughtful analysis—both to honour the originality of his approach and to chart the potential directions for his future work.

Text after “Koen van den Broek: Highway Code”, Prof. John C. Welchman.