About Henk
The story of a painter
Henk his early period is characterised by the distinct psychedelic mindset that defined much of the era. It was a time when altered states of consciousness were explored both artistically and socially, often influenced by experimentation with mind-altering substances.
he looming threat of Russia added to the atmosphere of uncertainty, fueling a sense of existential questioning. Henk sought to escape the pressures of reality, after extended periods of solitude and introspection.
In the 1970s, Henk Padt plunged into the world of abstraction, creating paintings that broke free from the conventional. His work quickly caught attention, earning him a nomination for the Royal subsidy for painting in 1982.
But Padt was never confined to one style. As the years passed, figurative elements began to seep into his abstract pieces, and by 1985, he fully embraced the figurative realm.
His paintings during this time were romantically realistic, filled with the raw emotions of nature. Yet even in this phase, his work was constantly shifting—alternating between the abstract and the figurative, as though searching for a deeper truth.
By the 1990s, abstraction took the lead once again, with Padt returning to the freedom of non-representational forms.For Padt, color was always the heartbeat of his work. In abstraction, color was a force of its own—guiding the shape, the form, and the energy of the piece. In figurative works, color was still the driving force, dictating the harmony and rhythm, even as it clung to the shapes of the figures.
But the line, whether figurative or abstract, was never the point. It was the color that held the power. For Padt, figuration and abstraction were not opposing forces but two sides of the same coin—both born from the same primal energy of color, where line is just a shadow, a suggestion, never something to be named or defined.