Kees Salentijn - Silkscreen, Face, framed.

Kees Salentijn (Amsterdam, 1947) studied at the Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam, in the fine art department. OB Kat was his most important mentor there.
During his studies, Salentijn studied paintings in the Prado in Madrid and spent several months with a Berber family in Morocco.
In the mid-1970s, he traveled and stayed in places like Greece; in 1977, he collaborated with painter Kenne Gregoire on the project "The Asparagus Eaters" in Venray. That same year, he was also commissioned to paint a mural for the city hall in Venlo.
In the 1980s, Salentijn traveled extensively to Spain. During this period, he felt connected to artists from various movements, who more or less championed spontaneous, unconscious creation and were not primarily concerned with aesthetic representation.
In 1983, a major retrospective of this Spanish journey took place, featuring paintings, collages, and drawings under the title "Extremadura." In 1984, Salentijn stayed in Barcelona and traveled through the Pyrenees and Catalonia. He visited the artist Antoni Tapies and also developed an interest in other Spanish painters such as Saura and Millares.
The death of the matador Paguiri inspired Salentijn to create his first bullfight (corrida) paintings. In 1985, he brought together several works on this theme under the title "Les folies d'Espagne" and exhibited them in Amsterdam. The 'bullfight' became a metaphor for the fight with the painting.
In the late 1980s, Salentijn visited excavations in Ampurias, a Greek/Roman settlement in Spain. These sites inspired his work. Afterward, he worked alternately in Venlo and in various studios of friends in Amsterdam. In the early 1990s, he moved into a studio near the capital and began his period of rapid creation. Coherence, collage, drawing, and painting served as a continuous expression of his creativity.