Hans van der Ham

Human figures often appear on the canvases of Hans van der Ham (1960, The Netherlands). These figures sometimes evoke tribal art, sometimes Picasso, or a 17th-century French portrait. Amid this tangle of historical references, Van der Ham manages to capture the layered quality of his paintings. Everything on the canvas becomes one—the thick oil paint, the communication between the figures, and the expressions on the faces of his main characters. It is rarely cheerful; it seems as though the figures are still waiting to inhabit the space between them.