Inspiring Enterprise
For many artists painting is a medium to explore their own environment, to study it closely and then to interpret it on canvas or paper. That is often the reason for artists to travel a lot: to look for new horizons and so to learn about their newness. Jan van Diemen does all this in a very expressionist way, sometimes almost in a completely abstract manner. But he will never renounce his control of form itself. The hand of the draftsman can always be recognised, just as Van Diemen’s fascination for sports. In many of his works the sporting figures play leading parts within the setting of a roughly painted landscape. It becomes a ‘sporting’ landscape in which landscape and sports merge into an exciting whole. There is no topographic reference in the landscape; at the most the plain land can be distinguished from a hill- or mountain area. The suggestive horizon does not emphasize the visual width of the painting; it remains a play of roughly drafted, rapidly painted formations, often in primary colours.
Van Diemen makes the onlooker guess at the time of day, at the light and at the transition of land, water and sky. The red, pink and yellow may look threatening and sometimes the sports-people and their attributes appear diminutive in a grand natural world. It is a romantic interpretation of man who may triumph over other men, but never over omnipotent nature.
In corporate art-collections Jan van Diemen is a well known name. His paintings, full of action, correspond to the dynamics which a concern wants to demonstrate. The vast sizes merge with the architecture of an industrial hall,a room or a meeting-centre. The artist is, however, also able to translate the message of a company in small more
detailed works. Enterprise remains a challenge. For Jan van Diemen that challenge is similar to a new horizon that has
to be visualized.
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