Artist Paul de Groot
Title Rolex
Media oil on canvas
Dated
2024
Size 59.75 x 46 in. / 151.8 x 116.8 cm.
Frame Size 61.25 x 47.25 x 2.25 in.
Estimate $3,900 - $7,800
Notes
signed and dated lower right; framed; some handling marks on frame noted
Provenance
this work was generously donated by the artist; proceeds will be donated to the Alberta University of the Arts (AUArts) Centennial Scholarships fund in celebration of the university's Centennial year. The Centennial Scholarships fund is a transformative initiative to provide future artists, craftspersons, and designers with tuition-free education. Centennial Scholarships will reduce financial barriers and provide students with a tuition-free year of study. For more information or to donate directly visit: auarts.ca/donate-now
Biographical Information
Paul de Groot ~ [21st century] Dutch/Canadian
Paul deGroot moved to Canada at an early age from the Netherlands and is currently based in Calgary. He started art school at Kootenay College along with his good friend, Chris Cran. Both Paul and Chris moved to Calgary to finish their degrees at the Alberta College of Art (now the Alberta University of the Arts), graduating in 1979. Paul continued to work in his home studio and had his first solo show at the Herringer Kiss Gallery which was a critical and commercial success. His work has been purchased by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts and numerous private collections.
Paul’s current work is rooted in the photorealist genre, with certain elements hinting at painterly gestures. His paintings, completed in oil, are based on personal photographs, chosen intuitively, which are generally photoshopped or manipulated in some manner before translation to canvas. The subject matter consists of everyday urban scenes, such as buildings, street scenes, vehicles, figures, etc., that are often perceived as ordinary or unremarkable in themselves. Although mostly painted monochromatically, colour always plays an important role in the paintings. In some paintings, deGroot sets highly realistic elements, such as figures, statues, vehicles and buildings, within intense fields of colour. Some of deGroot’s paintings appear at a distance as highly realistic but as a viewer walks closer, the seemingly photographic image dissolves into subtle painterly abstraction.