Artist spotlight

Ruud Bijman: Dreams in Ochre and Oil

30 July 2026

Ruud Bijman has spent more than three decades as a freelance illustrator, but it's his work as a painter since 2012 that reveals his deeply personal vision. Living in Baarn, Netherlands, this self-taught artist creates surreal, warm-toned compositions that explore the human body and figure in unexpected ways. His paintings and mixed media works blur the line between the abstract and the figurative, drawing viewers into dreamlike spaces where arms, faces, and mysterious creatures—whales, fish, dogs—emerge from ochre-hued backgrounds. There's an intimacy to his work, a sense of something being both glimpsed and felt rather than simply seen.