About

JanPaul Wittebol was born in Bussum, The Netherlands, in 1951, and have been making drawings and paintings since I could hold a pencil.

When I was around ten I started playing with oil paints.

Soon after that, when I was twelve, I had my first exhibition. From then on I took workshops from several  artists over the years.

Furthermore I was in the art academy of Rotterdam where I took lessons from Peter Blokhuis, amongst others.

I am convinced that, as a painter, you always remain a student. You keep on learning something new, from every painting, every time.

And you also learn from every fellow artist. Therefore I have always been both taking and giving workshops. That keeps you fresh.

Besides that I carefully studied all the notes jotted down by for instance Willem de Koning on the subject of painting. And I put them into practise as well, of course. Valuable information, I can assure you. But I read others as well.

I paint both abstract and figurative, for me there is not much difference. It is just a matter of mood.

Also I make photos and videos. When travelling that is very convenient.

My travels have brought me from Egypt to India, and from Argentina to the US. But I have also lived in England and Spain, and visited many other countries.

But especially India is a favourite of mine.  I visited at least 25 times. The beauty of the colors and the mystique, appeal to me in a very big way.

Since 2000 I have a daughter and live again in Amsterdam. But I am also often in Buenos Aires, where I have a studio in San Telmo. I find it a great city with a very rich cultural life.

There is some very good painting going on over there, and I love the latin-american way and bohemian atmosphere.

In the west, bohemian lifestyle is rather out of fashion nowadays. Even students of art colleges only pursui another career. It shows in their works,very often there's a lack of passion in my humble opinion, so for the balance, every now and again I go over to Argentina, and paint and live there for a while.