Leonoor Ruigrok contemporary artist

12/05/2026

With model Lola during a quiet live drawing session at 4BID Gallery.
Charcoal, paper, movement, and attention. In the end, that was all we really needed.
I keep returning to charcoal because of the freedom it gives me. The material responds immediately, without delay. A line does not need to be perfect to feel present. It is often in the rubbing, smudging, searching, and reworking that something appears which feels closer to emotion than to precision.
During this session, I was not interested in creating an exact representation of the body, but in rhythm, tension, softness, and direction. In the way a posture can almost dissolve into loose gestures. In how a figure sometimes becomes more visible through what is left out.
Lola brought a strong sense of calmness into the space. A focused presence that created room to truly observe, without rush. The quiet and open atmosphere of the session felt important to me. As if material, model, and observation slowly started speaking the same language.
For me, charcoal remains one of the most direct ways of working. Raw, physical, and honest.

11/05/2026

A small shed in an open landscape.
The wind swept fiercely across the land that day, while the sun softly fell over me and across the fields. Cool shades of blue beside warmer tones, thick layers of paint, movement visible everywhere.

It’s remarkable how such a small piece of land can hold so much freedom. For me, the little shed is not just a shape, but something far beyond that. An open space. A place filled with stories, thoughts, and above all, room for personal interpretation.

11/05/2026

I live among the cultivated fields and greenhouses of the Dutch Flower Region. Wearing my boots, I regularly wander through them with the dogs. The Flower Region is not only the landscape I live in, but also one that continues to shape my work.
The breathing lightness of the greenhouses against the dark heaviness of the earth. Reflections shifting through glass, water, and air. That tension fascinates me. Not only in people, or within myself, but also in nature.

19/04/2026

https://laceruig.nl/symbolism-in-painting-material-gesture-and-layered-meaning/

Discover how symbolism emerges through material, gesture and layered painting. An intuitive approach to contemporary symbolic art.

17/04/2026

Life drawing session in Amsterdam at 4BidGallery and
professional model Lou, Charcoal, fast poses, rhythm.

Less thinking, more responding.
Just moving with what emerges. Just as I love and need.

26/03/2026

Confessions of a flower - Oil paint on canvas - 2025
40 x 50 x 2 cm
Straight form a small Dutch studio in Voorhout,
surrounded by flowers and bulbs.
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A quiet moment held in paint, where softness meets structure, and something internal begins to take shape. It's spring!

Inspired by nature.





🌷

27/02/2026

**Material and signature**

My studio does not look orderly when I work. Brushes lie open, paint remains uncovered, surfaces shift. I move around the canvas rather than standing still in front of it. The process appears slightly chaotic, yet it follows a precise internal concentration.

I work physically. I need movement. I stand close to the surface, step back, return, sometimes circle the work. That motion determines my handwriting. The gesture is not added afterwards; it travels through the material itself.

Material is never accidental. I choose specific brushes for resistance or softness. A spatula for pressure and edge. Feathers for interruption, for a break in control. Each tool leaves a different trace. Each surface reacts differently.

However, the tool never leads. The handwriting does.

My mark remains recognisable, whether it moves through oil, mixed media, or layered grounds. It carries tension, pause, weight, release. The material receives it, but does not define it.

My choices are instinctive, yet grounded in knowledge. Years of studying technique, observing drying time, surface tension, absorption. Because of that understanding, I can allow instinct to take over.

Control and surrender coexist. The structure is present. The movement is free.

The material follows the gesture. The gesture carries the work.
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Photo 1: studioview
Photo 2: close up - impasto - Red home - Icelandic House art series
Photo 3: Red Home - oil paint on panel

25/02/2026

Charcoal.

With charcoal I work differently. More directly.
There is no resistance of thick paint, no drying time. Only pressure, movement, and contact.

The line responds immediately to the force of my hand.
Press harder and it deepens. Soften the touch and it fades into air. That sensitivity makes the material honest. There is little to hide behind.

Charcoal allows freedom. I can move fast, erase, blur, redraw. Smudge with my fingers. Let a gesture remain raw or dissolve it into shadow. The surface records every shift in energy.

It is a physical dialogue with paper.
Strength and softness exist in the same mark.

24/02/2026

Memory: Art and Luxury Fair Noordwijk – 2025
Huis ter Duin

Building the art wall. Unpacking the work, positioning it, stepping back, looking again. Every presentation requires concentration.

What visitors see is the final image. What precedes it is care.
Loading is done in a controlled way. Each work protected individually. No direct contact between protective material and the painted surface. Corners reinforced. Canvases transported upright, securely fixed, without shifting or tension on the linen.

Oil paint requires time. I take that time.
A work only leaves my studio when it is technically ready to travel safely and to be presented.

During the fair, conversations emerge. About layers. About symbolism. About what someone sees that I may not yet have articulated myself. There, between looking and speaking, the work takes its next step.


#艺术收藏

23/02/2026

Symbols in my art series It's nature.

22/02/2026

Free minds!

Small Gouache on Canvas – 10 x 10 cm
A small surface can hold a large tension.

This gouache painting, 10 x 10 cm, lives in concentration. The scale invites closeness. It asks the viewer to step in, rather than to stand at a distance. Within that intimacy, light becomes sharper, contrast more precise.

On its own, the work feels contained. However, when placed as a triptych, something shifts. Three small panels create rhythm. A symbolic scene unfolds — not fully explained, but suggested. Space opens between the parts. Freedom appears not as escape, but as breath.

Gouache allows for clarity and immediacy. The pigment sits closer to the surface, matte and direct. As a result, light is not reflected in gloss, but held within the color itself.

The scene carries light and tension at the same time. What seems delicate remains strong. What appears quiet still moves.

You are welcome to your own interpretation.
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Photo 1: tiny dreamer - gouache on canvas - 10 x 10 cm
Photo 2: soulland- gouache on canvas - 10 x 10 cm
Photo 3: artwall - Dreamland art collection - Soft Hope: oil on canvas - three x gouache on canvas 10 x 10 cm




#有灵魂的生活