Paintings ǀ Etienne Prins ǀ development of a planet

Etienne Prins, born 1969 in The Hague in the Netherlands. Born in a environment of Dutch Provo, a Dutch protest and anarchist movement. At the age of four his parents moved (in a walking journey of one year) to a small village in the south of France where he grew up. In 1982 he moved with his mother to the Netherlands where he finished high school and studied Business Law and European Law. In 1996 he started at the KABK (the Royal Academy for Arts in the Hague) and graduated in 2003. Thought he loved painting, he graduated making 3D (interactive) sculptures/installations with video.

Etienne Prins: "The individual is central in my work. The individual is picked out and put in the center of the work. I stage situations or scenes. The human emotion I feel at that moment, is isolated and enlarged. The spectator can take or be part in the work ( 'private space' and 'tent'). In Australia, in 2007-2008 where I've been traveling through, I was very struck by the contrast of new and old world. On one hand, the new Australians who are building the new Australia, where prosperity and wealth is central. On the other hand, the Aborigines who live in a totally different era and rhythm. The Aboriginal as I've seen them live isolated, as in another dimension, and are gradually assimilated by Western society (Arnhem Land blues, "Art of the Wall, Melbourne, 2008). At this moment I am working on DOAP (web site), in which I research the place of the individual in the world, especially from a western, European perspective. The emerging of new economies (eg, India, China, Middle East) creates shifts in world power in the fields of economy, but also of ideology and freedoms. What will happen with western society, the city as we know, the media and the individual? "