Three questions with Leo Schindzielorz
All about his passion for photography
Kris and her profound passion for painting
Kris Stuurop still has a big splotchy folder of all her childhood drawings. This was later followed by more folders containing pieces that she created during her studies, and she hasn't stopped since then. "Drawing and painting is something I've always done and it's still my favourite thing to do," explains artist Kris Stuurop, from Tilburg in the Netherlands. Today, Kris is going to share the story behind her career and creativity.
About Kris Stuurop
Kris has a profound passion for painting. As well as this, photography has always been a hobby of hers. "At the moment, I work part-time as a photo studio coordinator at a big Dutch furniture chain, where I'm kept busy taking all the photos for the brochure or the website, for example," she explains. Kris has made her hobby into her job. But as well as practising these passions, Kris also loves to spend her time "sleeping, eating, getting out in nature, gardening, being with animals, snowboarding, playing tennis and watching Netflix," Kris says.
Completely free
Kris kept acquiring more and more art supplies when she was a kid and this motivated her to further develop herself in the creative industry. She went on to study industrial design and afterwards spent years working as a freelance graphic designer in the brand identity sector. "Due to lack of time, painting and drawing were shoved into the background. I missed it terribly. That's why I decided to change careers a few years ago. I now work part-time as a photo coordinator at a big furniture chain, where I'm still really involved with image creation. This means I have plenty of time to paint without pressure or the need to achieve something. I'm really enjoying it. I'm also really happy that Art Heroes helps my work reach the right people (and vice versa). Painting has now truly become my job. I'm glad I took that step towards doing what I love most again!
"Inspiration is a compulsion that bubbles to the surface"
Since Kris has been painting all her life, she's already experimented with many styles over the years. "My current style varies slightly," says Kris. "You always see influences from both modernism and postmodernism. I mainly paint women and my first style involved women with flowers on their heads. It was called "Flowers on my mind". Here you'll recognise influences from surrealism (fantasy), Jugendstil and Art Nouveau. This series came about simply because I had flowers on my mind and couldn't resist the urge to paint them. That's how inspiration often works: it's just a sudden compulsion that bubbles to the surface. According to Kris, an artwork is the result of an itch that needs to be scratched: "These arise when you're out living your life."
The reason Kris makes art
For Kris, painting itself is the most fascinating thing and the reason why she makes art. The end result is always a surprise for Kris: "I start from a place of inspiration and I'm always curious to see what it will eventually become. While you're working, you get sudden bursts of inspiration and things happen that you wouldn't have thought of before." For Kris, the result isn't the most important thing. For her, it's important that she doesn't feel obligated to make a work of art. "When I don't feel like working on it anymore and it looks 'finished', then I put it up for sale." If something doesn't look 'finished' enough to sell, then I set it to one side. Sometimes I won't work on it again for months because I never paint when I don't feel the urge to. If something really isn't 'finished' and I'm not feeling it or I've run out of inspiration, then I simply throw it away. Kris can only truly enjoy the process when she is really inspired and drawn to a concept. "Mixing paints, seeing the colours you create: my palette is a beautiful mess. I'll slather on mountains of paint until my palette is basically a few centimetres thick and I really need to grab a new one," Kris explains.
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