About Mies
I'm Mies, a 25 year old oil painter originally from Rotterdam, but now living in Amsterdam for the past 6 years. I grew up near the port, which I resented as a kid. I wanted mountains and a forest, not container ships. But the harbor got under my skin anyway. All that chaos had this underlying order to it, and I found that both comforting and suffocating. Like a rhythm you can't escape.
Bending systems
There's something seductive about order. It tells you where to stand, what to do next. But it also boxes you in. My work exists in that contradiction. I'm looking for the spaces where structure bends, where you can push against it and create room to move. Not breaking it. Just refusing to let it flatten you completely.
My shapes push against each other until they find their own balance.
Nothing here is meant to be decorative or easy. These paintings are about carving out space when everything around you wants to compress you into something simpler and more manageable.
What keeps me painting
Every piece comes back to the same question: how do you stay visible and honest in systems built on predictability? I don't have the answer yet. But I keep painting it anyway.
xxx
