Short biography and vision / explanation of work

About my work.

I have been creating a lot of visual art my whole life. In 2008, I stopped my job as a teacher in vocational education to be able to create full-time drawings, watercolors, and paintings. My work is figurative with a personal twist.

For the most part, I am self-taught, although I occasionally take a short workshop. (Museums, CREA,..)

Certain themes keep recurring in my work:

• “human images” without people, such as street furniture or a piece of street or cityscape (this can sometimes hit me hard as a powerful “own” image)
• portraits of people, animals, or flowers
• Cityscapes
• Landscape

An important motivation to create something is:

• The challenge of capturing an image on paper or canvas. Many images pass you by, are only there for a moment... fascinating if you can hold that. This certainly applies to action and energy, as with athletes.
• But also a light effect... or... how do you do that? Can I do that?
• Experimenting with different materials and techniques keeps me passionate.

About myself.

Born in 1953 in Haarlem North as the third in an artistic family.

Music was always made and painted by the whole family. I studied medicine and became a teacher of medical subjects (stopped in 2008).

Married, 2 sons and 2 grandchildren. I live in Haarlem. I have had about 20 solo exhibitions and regularly sell work to private individuals. Most of it in the Netherlands, but also in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, and Spain my work has been purchased.

Coby ten Berge-Wolters

Artist website:

www.cobytenberge-schilderijen.nl