The artist of this week’s “artist special” is Roy Schreuder (1991), Netherlands. Since 2007, Roy has been creating street art and started painting in public spaces. After Roy completed his education in 2012, he started his own career as an independent artist.
As an independent artist, Roy has already done many different projects and traveled a lot around the globe. We are happy Roy participated in various ASA projects. “The first years as an independent artist I mainly lived abroad and I traveled a lot”. In 2016 Roy won the Dutch Street Art Award in the category Dutchie Got Talent (Greatest Talent). If you scroll through Roy’s Instagram page you will see many different subjects that he paints, for example, animals, skulls or realistic portraits built out of multi-layered stencils.
The artist specials will contain a new topic from this week. Every week I ask the artist a few questions so that we get to know the artist even better. Everyone has a different story about how they got into the “graffiti scene”. I asked Roy how he got into the scene,
“When I was 14 years old I started tagging with a friend. From there I moved more towards street art, I wanted more and bigger walls”.
Beside his own work, he works a lot on behalf of municipalities, companies and foundations to collaborate on both small and large projects. For Roy it is important that a painting provides a clear addition to an environment and that the environment in their turn also contributes to the work.
Roy works from a classic vanitas theme. Skulls, flowers, etc all turn them towards impermanence. He elaborates this in a graphic woodcut-like style in which he applies hard lines across the areas of color. On his Instagram I see various subjects that he paints with a striking and beautiful use of color. I was curious what his favorite subject is to paint,
“I actually prefer to paint skulls”
In 2018 Roy opened the Sidewalk Gallery in the center of Leeuwarden. Here, artists who work in a public space or young artist from the streets are given a stage and show their work in the form of exhibitions with a wide variety of art pieces. The Sidewalk Gallery is not only a gallery but also a place where young artists and interested people meet each other.
Because Roy has already made so many works, I was curious with which artwork he is most satisfied with,
“I am still very satisfied with the two projects I did with Joram Roukes last year”.
Never miss a project of Roy Schreuder again, check out his socials!
