From 7 August to 1 October 2022, Museum Valkenburg presents the exhibition: Franscz Witte – ‘Walks in hope, love and chaos’ in the Bovenzaal.

Franscz Witte was born on the island of Texel and lives in Margraten. He attended the City Academy in Tilburg and the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht. His paintings express his search for structures of human behavior. The result of this search is a representation of human figurations, in combination with archetypes of nature, ‘violent’ in color and made with strong broad gestures. He uses various techniques with ink, watercolor and acrylic paint. The making process is more interesting for Franscz Witte than the end result; that process reflects the “fight” a painter must wage to achieve that result. He is therefore not a realistic painter.

Sketch

Franscz Witte makes sketches during his nature walks. These contain a certain intimacy, imperfect and complete at the same time. In contrast to a painting, a sketch is always good, the value judgment is left out. Sketches are never wrong because they are made as a concept, a pure expression of feelings. Franscz’s sketches can be followed as a journey, a flowing movement with resting points of wonder, but with room for the presence of the other. His ‘invitation’ to join him for a walk requires a certain degree of integrity, because during the journey you not only encounter the landscape but also the emotional life of yourself and the other. Everyone follows their own, unique path, but also enters into a dialogue with the other. The artist follows lines with his eye and hand and by adding color not only reality but also the layering of the image is shown. Because the sketches arise from the emotion of the moment of making, they take the artist and viewer back to the place and time where they were created. The final end result, the paintings, are the logical continuation of that experience.

The exhibition will be opened on Sunday, August 7, 2022 at 3 p.m. by Harrie Timmerman.