I have known Hendrik Smit since the late 1980s when he first started tentatively exploring the art world to discover what opportunities it had to offer him, and what he had to offer it.

As a keen observer, he developed the main lines of his own individual style in a few years. It was already clear then that his work, rooted in a Dutch tradition of intuitive expressionism, would continue to develop in the same direction. During this process, the elements that Smit worked hard to eliminate from his work were just as important as those he strove to include. For example, all figurative associations were absolutely taboo, and even the slightest traces of predictability that he discovered in his work would be mercilessly eradicated.

Smit’s palette cannot be called really Dutch, since it lacks the sombreness of hue typically associated with this often Calvinist view of art. He prefers to use bright, almost fluorescent primary pastel colours and scrupulously avoids dramatic patches of black. This gives his work a strikingly youthful, contemporary look.

Smit’s oeuvre has grown into a stable collection that enjoys international recognition. Examples of his work may be found in a number of leading American galleries, for example. The professional approach that has always characterised Smit’s work is one of the reasons for its growing popularity among collectors. In fact, he may be said to be experiencing a surprising international breakthrough at the moment.

This comes at a time when Smit’s style has matured thanks among things to his increasingly uncompromising attack on his often very large-sized canvases with the golden super acrylic paint he loves to use in combination with oil paint. He has given up using traditional brushes, though he does touch up his work locally with a palette knife. Basically, however, he operates through direct physical contact between his plastic-wrapped hands and the canvas – a literally hands-on approach, avoiding the frustration that might be caused by the intervention of any intermediary medium. The combination of his powerful physical presence and his energetic artistic drive generates a beam of creative energy focused on the canvas to give an explosion of colour with a reassuring smile – an abstract portrait of the artist, in fact.

Christine van Stralen
30.03.08
Art Projects Bureau, Almere, the Netherlands.