NARROWSBURG, NY — The artist Johan Sellenraad has been painting for most of his life. An upcoming exhibition at the Delaware Arts Alliance Loft Gallery in Narrowsburg—taking place from Saturday, July 1 to Sunday, August 6 is about figure painting and still lives. 

Side by side, their similarity is obvious in that they are really “Figure and Veggie Paintings/It’s All About Painting,” the title of his show. 

The work, in the artist's own words 

“To see a room of life-size nude figure paintings may be slightly concerning; however, there is a difference between the stereotypical girly pictures in the popular media and what is in this show. 

“Figure painting goes back to prehistoric cave painting, Greek classical art, the Renaissance and modern times. The recent uproar about Michaelangelo’s David’s nudity proves that ignorance is not bliss. My attempt is to follow modern originals like those in my COVID-inspired painting of some of my heroes, like Lucian Freud and Alice Neal. 

“In art school, we worked with nude models for four years, because through this process you learn best how to draw, to acquire a sense of form and composition in placing the form in space. This is the process. The studio is a neutral visual laboratory. Things, objects and people arrive, and when they make an imprint, they may turn into a painting, usually in life scale. Carrots for small paintings, people in large paintings.  

“I paint nudes because nude paintings show us the common humanity of the naked body. That beauty comes in myriads of shapes, that should be made visible to us, and for us not to be ashamed. 

“Nude models have their own presence. It is collaborative, the way the figure fits the space, the psychological aspects, and above all how that translates in a painting. To make the figure come alive. 

“People are different without clothes. Just take off your shoes and see. If anything, I am attempting to get away from any and all stereotypes. The models are normal people. Models have their own presence. I work with that. I don’t engage with an audience. It’s intimate, and both of us must be totally open, not like uncovering secrets, but just connecting like real people. The painting comes from this communication. My paintings are almost portraits of humanity. This is more or less the playing field for me. 

“Painting is a visual language. When I say “It’s All About Painting,” I am speaking of the line, color, approach and details, which I love. The paintings are a full language. Not an imitation of nature, nor superficial things. As an artist, I show my models as they truly are. As we all are. 

“This is the mystery of these nudes, that they give us a sense of illusion. In that they are separate from us in their unique individuality, and yet, the body being universal, they are us too. 

“In essence, I am trying to lift the veil on the human body so we see ourselves in the model. As we look at these bodies, we see ourselves, like a new invention of ourselves.” 

Selleraad grew up in occupied Holland during World War II—hiding, like Anne Frank, in a secret room his father built while the Nazis patrolled the streets outside. It is interesting to consider if or how this experience influenced the humanistic ideas and art we see so many years later in this show. 

About the artist 

Sellenraad moved to the U.S. and graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Chicago. He taught for many years at several universities and at the Parsons School of Design. He lived in Chicago until the 1960s, when he moved to New York City; he lived there until the ‘90s. He now lives in Pennsylvania.