Featured Artist Tim Hupkes

Dutch artist Tim Hupkes shares a quirky and humorous collection of whimsical digital paintings of animals. Visit her website to see more.

 

 

I was one of those children who couldn’t keep her hands off pencils and paper. Drawing became an excellent way of being physically present at school while mentally somewhere else. This is where the crazy animals originated.

 

 

For years, what came out was mostly humour and slightly odd animals, with very definite ideas of their own. Behaving badly, or looking as if they had just caught you doing something you shouldn’t. That is still very much part of my work. I don’t think art has to be serious to be taken seriously. Humour can open up something that has been screwed tightly shut and give it some air to breathe.

 

 

Ideas often simply fall into my head. Sometimes I suddenly know what I need to make. Occasionally I actually see it, as happened with an elephant balancing on a tightrope, which appeared in my mind’s eye for perhaps a split second. Working it out took two days.

 

 

I work in acrylics on canvas, coloured pencils and inks and watercolours on paper, and digital media. My process can be completely different from one piece to another. Sometimes I know exactly what I am making when I start. That is no guarantee it will stay that way. I once started with what I was certain would be a hamster wearing glasses, only to discover it was actually a jaguar sitting on his backside.

 

 

There is a constant tug-of-war in my work between precision and letting go. With my classic cars, I am obsessive about accuracy. Every detail has to be right, which can mean hunting down reference photographs of a particular model from a particular angle before I can continue. In other work, I deliberately try to loosen my grip, leaving rough marks, imperfect lines and evidence of the hand that made them. Then I look at it again and want to fix them.

 

 

I am my own worst critic. Even when I deliberately work loosely, I can look at a finished piece weeks later and wonder whether I should tighten something up. I never quite know which side is going to win.

 

 

Perhaps that restlessness is also why my work moves between humorous and surreal animals, classic cars, and abstract painting. I get antsy making more of the same. Abstract work gives me another kind of freedom: rather than illustrating an idea that has arrived fully formed, I can begin with colour, movement or a vague notion and find out where it leads.

 

 

My work is available as original paintings and drawings, as well as fine art prints and limited editions. Some works begin digitally, while others originate on canvas or paper and continue their lives as prints. So perhaps not that much has changed since the coloured-pencil years after all. I still get an idea, want to see what it looks like, and have to make it.

 

Tim Hupkes invites you to follow on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and Pinterest.

 

 

Want to stay current on cutting edge business articles from Artsy Shark, plus artist features, and an invitation to the next Call for Artists? Click below to sign up for our twice-monthly email. You’ll get all this plus opportunities and special offers that you can’t get anywhere else!