artist biography
Aak Lengkeek was born March 1940 into a Dutch family in the city of Rotterdam. His father, an architect, ushered him into the world of art, structure and dimension and stimulated his artistic talents. His mother, a gifted pianist, was in her repertoire way ahead of her time. The family’s active involvement in music honed his intuitive feel for rhythm, composition and harmony, but also made him aware of the importance of contrast and discord.
Travels to Greece, started in the early sixties, opened his eyes to the vernacular Greek architecture as well as to the exquisite quality of light and color in the Mediterranean.
Aak is autodidact and developed his talent through lifelong involvement in all kinds of artistic endeavors: painting, sculpting, stonework, design and furniture building besides a career as an industrial psychologist and consultant. Presently, he and his wife Carol, who had an artistic career as an interior designer and still is a business owner, are in the process of permanently moving to the island of Samos, Greece, where they also produce excellent wines and olive oil.
Travels to Greece, started in the early sixties, opened his eyes to the vernacular Greek architecture as well as to the exquisite quality of light and color in the Mediterranean.
Aak is autodidact and developed his talent through lifelong involvement in all kinds of artistic endeavors: painting, sculpting, stonework, design and furniture building besides a career as an industrial psychologist and consultant. Presently, he and his wife Carol, who had an artistic career as an interior designer and still is a business owner, are in the process of permanently moving to the island of Samos, Greece, where they also produce excellent wines and olive oil.
artist statement
As long as I can remember, I have been fascinated with roads, streets, and pavements in general but it was not until I started reflecting on my paintings that I figured out where this fascination comes from and what it stands for.
It all started two months after I was born, when, at the onset of World War II, German bombs razed the heart of Rotterdam, a prosperous medieval city in the Netherlands. As a result of bombings and air raids, the prevailing elements of my playground as a child were ruins, gaping holes, piles of debris, discarded bricks, curbstones and sewer lids. I was too young to grasp the severity of our predicament and instead, the chaos must have piqued my curiosity, my imagination and my desire for adventure; three characteristic personality traits that have driven my activities ever since.
After the war everything changed for the better and the pavers in our streets made place for asphalt and concrete, so there was no more reason to watch the pavement out of necessity.
My fascination remained however and was growing even stronger with emerging patterns where new elements were integrated with old ones or where asphalt and concrete were showing the signs of disintegration. It grew to a point where I decided that I needed to express my experiences into paintings, an endeavor that I did not pursue professionally because of social pressures to complete my studies in psychology, lacking techniques, and lacking self confidence. Nobody else did this kind of thing. In the sixties, representational art was totally a thing of the past and the abstract painters had abandoned perspective, so where do you fit in when you paint pavements?
I never made a serious effort to be a painter until 2007 when I discovered that I the urge to paint was still as strong as when I was in my twenties and when my wife Carol generously offered to use her spacious business office as a studio. I quickly developed the technique that would support the desired quality in my style of painting which boosted production as much as the growing awareness that my pictures of disintegrating pavements are deeply symbolical: roads lay at the basis of our civilization and represent time. They lead back to the past; they point to what lies ahead and facilitate moving forward.
What further inspires me in these pavements is the ongoing dialogue between the manmade world - functional and rational - and the natural forces - erratic and spontaneous -. Tectonics, gravity, temperature, precipitation, as well as human use and abuse leave their marks on our roads as patterns of cracks, dents, holes, blots and stains: the Tracks of Time.
I see the metamorphosis in this micro cosmos reflecting the changes in our culture today. With much of our secure world cracking, our economy crumbling, our basic beliefs and assumptions open to question, the Tracks of Time represent a powerful and contemporary metaphor that reminds us that the only thing we can safely rely on in this world is the fact that everything changes.
By elevating a mundane and disintegrating reality to a purely aesthetic level, I challenge the viewer to see beauty and opportunity where others see decay, and trust the process of change. These paintings reflect my optimistic, yet realistic perspective on journeys taken by both the individual and humanity as a whole.
It all started two months after I was born, when, at the onset of World War II, German bombs razed the heart of Rotterdam, a prosperous medieval city in the Netherlands. As a result of bombings and air raids, the prevailing elements of my playground as a child were ruins, gaping holes, piles of debris, discarded bricks, curbstones and sewer lids. I was too young to grasp the severity of our predicament and instead, the chaos must have piqued my curiosity, my imagination and my desire for adventure; three characteristic personality traits that have driven my activities ever since.
After the war everything changed for the better and the pavers in our streets made place for asphalt and concrete, so there was no more reason to watch the pavement out of necessity.
My fascination remained however and was growing even stronger with emerging patterns where new elements were integrated with old ones or where asphalt and concrete were showing the signs of disintegration. It grew to a point where I decided that I needed to express my experiences into paintings, an endeavor that I did not pursue professionally because of social pressures to complete my studies in psychology, lacking techniques, and lacking self confidence. Nobody else did this kind of thing. In the sixties, representational art was totally a thing of the past and the abstract painters had abandoned perspective, so where do you fit in when you paint pavements?
I never made a serious effort to be a painter until 2007 when I discovered that I the urge to paint was still as strong as when I was in my twenties and when my wife Carol generously offered to use her spacious business office as a studio. I quickly developed the technique that would support the desired quality in my style of painting which boosted production as much as the growing awareness that my pictures of disintegrating pavements are deeply symbolical: roads lay at the basis of our civilization and represent time. They lead back to the past; they point to what lies ahead and facilitate moving forward.
What further inspires me in these pavements is the ongoing dialogue between the manmade world - functional and rational - and the natural forces - erratic and spontaneous -. Tectonics, gravity, temperature, precipitation, as well as human use and abuse leave their marks on our roads as patterns of cracks, dents, holes, blots and stains: the Tracks of Time.
I see the metamorphosis in this micro cosmos reflecting the changes in our culture today. With much of our secure world cracking, our economy crumbling, our basic beliefs and assumptions open to question, the Tracks of Time represent a powerful and contemporary metaphor that reminds us that the only thing we can safely rely on in this world is the fact that everything changes.
By elevating a mundane and disintegrating reality to a purely aesthetic level, I challenge the viewer to see beauty and opportunity where others see decay, and trust the process of change. These paintings reflect my optimistic, yet realistic perspective on journeys taken by both the individual and humanity as a whole.