Daan Roukens (1987) is a Dutch visual artist, known for his diverse and colourful abstract self-portraits. He portrays what is going on in his head in an abstract way. Roukens continuously experiences a restless feeling as a result of the tension between order and chaos and is always searching for a peace of mind, which he never finds. When he experiences too much chaos, he lets his obsessive perfectionism run free and if that structure becomes too dominant, he will add chaos again. He experiences the contradicting and connecting moment of that in-between as a sublime experience, which is expressed in his work. He feels the strong need to take the viewer into this process in order to experience the same as he does.

Through his art he gives new value to daily life by questioning contradictions that most people take for granted. Various opposing answers can coexist and together they exceed thinking in black-and-white terms. He changes everyday recognizable things in such a way that it broadens his perspective and that of the viewer.

Roukens successfully graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art at AKV St. Joost (Den Bosch, 2009) and obtained his Master of Fine Art degree at the Sandberg Instituut (Amsterdam, 2018). His work varies from autonomous projects to commissions and he also initiates his own exhibitions. His abstract self-portraits are known by a broad audience and are exhibited at museums, galleries, shops and fairs. He lives and works in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

25 Jun   Expect Nothing, Appreciate Everything

I’m very excited to share with you my new series of artworks: Expect Nothing, Appreciate Everything. It is the completion of my Masters program at the Sandberg Instituut. Although I happily graduated in 2018, the series was not yet finished and required more research.

Stay informed about my latest artworks, exhibitions and other special news.