Jan Starke
Geometric artist Jan Starke was born and raised in Groningen, the Netherlands, and now lives and works in Oftringen, Switzerland. Alongside a career first in real estate and later in wind energy, Starke has quietly maintained his own practice as an artist for over 35 years, creating hand-drawn, geometric black and white works in ink and graphite on paper. Since retiring, he has embraced the practice more openly, turning fuller attention to collecting, and his own art.
His professional life defined by structure and calculation, his art simultaneously explores and defies this: organic, flowing, and unmistakably human. What first reads as a perfectly uniform grid of right angles gradually gives way to a quiet chaos held within fastidious structures: solid blacks reveal anarchic pen strokes and subtle variations in hue, kinks and bends disrupt and distort checkerboards. Small idiosyncrasies amplify their contextual exactness , each deviation making the surrounding order feel more deliberate, each rigid line making the surrounding irregularity feel more alive. Starke's work is inspired by the emotions and thoughts of daily life and nature, each piece imbued with a quiet sentimentality toward his surroundings.
Having bought his first painting at twenty, “I actually was a collector, without knowing that I was a collector”, he went on to build a substantial personal collection spanning seventeenth century masters through to contemporary work, including pieces by Rubens, Salvador Dalí, Juan Gris and George Hendrik Breitner, alongside a strong holding of De Ploeg, the Groningen artist collective. In 2012, his collection having outgrown the space in his own home, he opened Huis voor de Kunst in Veendam, a gallery deliberately built to feel like a house rather than a museum. "Art is not meant to collect dust in an attic," he has said. "Art belongs in a home. Art is meant to be shared." The venue went on to host chamber concerts and fashion presentations, including a scarf collaboration with designer Jan Boelo, alongside an ongoing exhibition partnership with Groningen's Klassieke Academie. Huis voor de Kunst was featured across eight episodes of the Dutch television programme Life is Beautiful, and in 2015 Starke was named Veendammer van het Jaar, Veendam's Citizen of the Year, for his contribution to the region through the arts.
Geometric artist Jan Starke was born and raised in Groningen, the Netherlands, and now lives and works in Oftringen, Switzerland. Alongside a career first in real estate and later in wind energy, Starke has quietly maintained his own practice as an artist for over 35 years, creating hand-drawn, geometric black and white works in ink and graphite on paper. Since retiring, he has embraced the practice more openly, turning fuller attention to collecting, and his own art.
His professional life defined by structure and calculation, his art simultaneously explores and defies this: organic, flowing, and unmistakably human. What first reads as a perfectly uniform grid of right angles gradually gives way to a quiet chaos held within fastidious structures: solid blacks reveal anarchic pen strokes and subtle variations in hue, kinks and bends disrupt and distort checkerboards. Small idiosyncrasies amplify their contextual exactness , each deviation making the surrounding order feel more deliberate, each rigid line making the surrounding irregularity feel more alive. Starke's work is inspired by the emotions and thoughts of daily life and nature, each piece imbued with a quiet sentimentality toward his surroundings.
Having bought his first painting at twenty, “I actually was a collector, without knowing that I was a collector”, he went on to build a substantial personal collection spanning seventeenth century masters through to contemporary work, including pieces by Rubens, Salvador Dalí, Juan Gris and George Hendrik Breitner, alongside a strong holding of De Ploeg, the Groningen artist collective. In 2012, his collection having outgrown the space in his own home, he opened Huis voor de Kunst in Veendam, a gallery deliberately built to feel like a house rather than a museum. "Art is not meant to collect dust in an attic," he has said. "Art belongs in a home. Art is meant to be shared." The venue went on to host chamber concerts and fashion presentations, including a scarf collaboration with designer Jan Boelo, alongside an ongoing exhibition partnership with Groningen's Klassieke Academie. Huis voor de Kunst was featured across eight episodes of the Dutch television programme Life is Beautiful, and in 2015 Starke was named Veendammer van het Jaar, Veendam's Citizen of the Year, for his contribution to the region through the arts.