In the paintings of Jan Christiaan van Ruyven, colour does not behave as an accessory — it becomes the very architecture of experience.

 

What begins as a gesture, a trace on the surface, grows into a vivid and layered world where the concrete landscape is not depicted, but is felt. His canvases breathe with shifting atmospheres: the pulse of a river, the weight of a cloud, the slow choreography of light across open land.

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Living on the French countryside has shaped this evolution profoundly. With nature at arm’s length — its unpredictable skies, its quiet tonal shifts, its effortless generosity — Van Ruyven found the freedom to move from structured, graphic compositions toward a more intuitive, abstract language.

 

Here, colour is not only seen but experienced: vibrating, dissolving, colliding, opening new space.