Léon ENGELEN

 Leon Engelen was born in 1943 in Bree (Belgium).
He grew up in the middle of an at that time virgin nature, in which there were a lot of beautiful little farms. Although he was creative, he didn't excel in painting.
Leon has attended the painting academy for several years.

"Leon's starting-point is reality. A subject catches his interest, he starts painting it and during that process things are added to it; what he sees is what he wants to see. Everything Leon looks at is automatically reduced to a painting subject. He can no longer look at something in a normal way. In front of him he sees immediately the drawing, the structure and the colours he'll need. He looks at everything as a painting subject. He simply can't look at them in another way, not even at things he isn't interested in for painting. Leon's work is linked to that of landscape and animal painter of the previous centuries. In former times there was a painters' community, in which strong mutual ties existed and in which techniques and ideas were exchanged. Leon can't take advantage of such a feed-back; he had to find it all by himself, which makes him more or less apart. Moreover he specialized himself in painting bricks and tiles. According to Leon, the art of painting will follow its own path; he thinks it's nonsense to push it in a certain direction. It will be the side-slips, who become determining. But Leon doesn't know if he can count himself to that category. He paints what he thinks he ought to paint, in a certain manner, as good as he can do it. One has to accept it or not, whether you think it's beautiful or not."