We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jan Leenders. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jan below.
Alright Jan, thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue an artistic path professionally?
I certainly wasn’t a kid that already had a big artistic interest. I wasn’t drawing or painting much as a child, I don’t have parents who are into art. I was much more into music. Playing drums was my biggest hobby and as a teenager I dreamed about a career in music.
When I was studying journalism I got in touch with graphic design, which made me want to pursue a career in that direction. During those studies I really got into art and art history, but it wasn’t until my graduation project in the final year that I actually took the step from “learning about art” to “making art”.
Could you tell a bit more about that graduation project?
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?
Okay, so I’m a guy from Belgium, born in 1976. I have two teenage kids and we live in a quiet town near the border with Holland.
Some people might know me as the “butt artist” or the “butt painter”, as my butt paintings got quite some attention and it’s the motif that most people identify me with. I’ve been (and still am) trying to get out of this butt loop, but somehow new butt ideas keep popping up in my head, and it’s just too much fun not to try them out.
That being said, I’d love to find a new “big motif” and develop a large series around that. But just as the butt came naturally, I suppose a new motif will present itself when the time’s right. Or at least I hope it’ll do sooner or later.
Yes. After I got my MFA and started doing my first exhibitions, I was very dependent on galleries and their networks. It was the only way to reach new people. The internet existed but it wasn’t as omnipresent as it is now. I’m talking about the early 00’s here, so Instagram or TikTok still had to be invented.When I started posting my art on Instagram in 2020, I quickly began to attain attention from all over the world. This was completely new to me. My audience was mainly Belgian. Suddenly people from literally all over the world started liking and buying my art. Directly from me, no gallery in between.
Do you have specific goals for your social media accounts?
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
Just the process of making art is what I like the most. It’s a creative outlet. I love searching for ideas, going back to older work and trying to connect different pieces and finding new links, experimenting, losing track of time and completely getting lost in the creation process.
And of course it’s nice too when people tell you they like your work. Even if I feel I do it mostly for myself. It’s nice when people talk to me about what they see. When they understand my intention or the creative jumps I made between different pieces, it seems like we’re completely on the same wavelength. That’s a great feeling. But it’s also awesome when someone sees things in my work that I didn’t see before and when I draw inspiration from that.
Contact Info:
- Website: janleenders.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jnlndrs/
Image Credits
Jan Leenders