Harold paints works that are impossible to walk past. His paintings seize you and hold you still; they demand your attention. The longer and more often you look at them, the more satisfaction you experience as a viewer. The more time you grant his work, the more it gives in return. At times his works appear hectic and imbued with a kind of frenzied expression, created with a loose hand. With the drive and frivolity of action painting, they are sometimes built up in multiple layers. In doing so, he seeks out the contrast between the different worlds from which these distinct layers arise, sometimes interrupted by a thick band of paint that winds its way across the canvas. From this emerge his primary, yet sometimes supernatural beings. A deep attention to primitive peoples, the naturalness of prehistory, and the purity of love and peace recur repeatedly in the early years of his creative practice as an artist. Westerink incorporates themes into his works to which he sometimes gives surprising yet inspiring titles. Yet the figures he includes are always primary in form, sometimes interwoven, merging into one another, or forming a whole together like a totem.
Harold possesses a versatile creativity and imagination, fueled by immense spontaneity. This ensures that he never repeats himself, but continually evolves or seeks new forms.
Expressionism is a source of inspiration for Harold, with a great admiration for Jean-Michel Basquiat. His earlier works and drawings are inspired by this major American artist, though never imitative. Harold does it “his way”; in a highly individual manner he shapes his neo-expressionism, constantly varying in theme and execution.
There is also a noticeable affinity with the Neue Wilden, a neo-expressionist German art movement, with artists such as Julian Schnabel and David Salle. Yet whereas neo-expressionist painters from the 1970s onward opposed the established order and dominant movements such as minimalism and conceptual art, Westerink prefers to focus on his work. He has little interest in complicated artist statements or deliberate provocation. Instead, he produces paintings and drawings that arise in a direct and intuitive manner.
His canvases are sometimes commentary in paint, often supported by sharp titles, allowing him to transcend situations caused by socio-political flare-ups. Painting and writing with a firm brush offer him a means of grasping some footing in this world. Grandstanding does not suit Harold; he is too inward-looking, too introverted. You would not expect a manifesto from him—reflections in word and image, however, very much so. The only thing he claims is the right to be himself. Hence the powerful, expressive, and direct nature of his painting. Without hesitation, he blends different techniques, layer upon layer and back again: action painting, scraping, printing, dripping, spray paint, and collages with drawings, extending to street art. Complexity in both content and execution. Mixed media.
The paths toward discovering Harold Westerink are long and offer an intensely engaging journey of experience. Time and again, the attentive viewer encounters new emotions, a renewed sense of wonder in the work. At times it seems inexhaustible. Never a sense of déjà vu, but always a new and rich experience, often depending on the viewer’s state of mind.