Landscapes
North Holland and southern France, reduced to light, space and mood.
Painter of De Woude and the French Hérault.
Henk
van Dam — painter from De Woude, North Holland
Art exists to make people look.
Landscapes and figures. Layered, sanded, built up. Work that asks for contemplation, not explanation.
Welcome
Work that asks to be looked at slowly.
The paintings of Henk van Dam do not seek an accurate depiction of reality. They arise from observation, memory and intuition, with De Woude, the Alkmaardermeer, North Holland and the French Hérault as recurring sources.
Landscape, figure and still life are reduced to colour, rhythm, composition and atmosphere — contemporary art for the wall, made to be looked at for a long time. The viewer is given room to look further, on their own terms.
Work
Themes
Recurring subjects mark his work. Each theme is revisited, seen differently and built up differently.
Markervaart
Crossing, shore, water — the familiar rhythm of island life.
Clivia
A Clivia that has been in the family for more than seventy years. Form, colour and memory in one.
Still lifes
Objects and plants, quietly arranged; colour and stillness in a simple order.
Model
The model as a presence. Posture, direction and the space between.
Circulades
The old walled villages of the Languedoc. Stone, shadow and silence as composition.
Island
De Woude, sky, quiet, water and the landscape around the house.
Seasons
Shifting light, colours that change. The turning of the year as a painting.
Figure compositions
People in motion. The relationship between figures, glimpsed and held on canvas.
Impressions
Observations from along the way. Markets, harbours, beaches — daily life passing by.
Process
Building up. Sanding down. Building up again.
Henk van Dam works in layers. Acrylic, chalk and charcoal are applied with a broad brush or palette knife, removed, sanded back and built up again. Traces of earlier layers remain visible. That is not a mistake; that is the work.
Life
De Woude and the Hérault. Two worlds, one gaze.
Henk van Dam lives on De Woude, an island in the Alkmaardermeer in North Holland. For a large part of the year he also stays in the French Hérault, where the landscapes, colours and circulades have occupied him for decades.
His work moves between observation and memory. Between what is seen and what is felt. Between the familiar and the strange.
Archive
Past exhibition
On 18 and 19 July 2026, a selection of Henk van Dam's work was shown in De Woude: early canvases alongside recent paintings, landscapes and figures from North Holland and the Hérault.
View the archive
Contact
Please feel free to get in touch.
Are you interested in buying a painting, would you like to know more about available work, or do you have a question about earlier work? Feel free to send a message.
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