Wouter Berns
Exhibition Humanoids
13-06-2026 -31-08-2026
Het verklede pareadijs, 2021, 185x110.
Het verklede paradijs, 2021, 185x110cm.
Jona, 2009, 80x90cm.
Het verklede paradijs, 2021, 185x110cm.
Wouter Berns (1970) is a storyteller in paint. His work is often surreal, infused with humour, irony, and subtle estrangement, yet always carries a deeper, introspective undertone. With remarkable technical skill and an open-hearted curiosity about the human condition, he creates images that draw the viewer into worlds that exist just beyond the boundaries of everyday reality.
In the exhibition Humanoids, he presents two paintings in which these qualities come together. Both works draw on biblical motifs that illuminate the human condition while perhaps also revealing something personal about the artist himself.
Jonah (2009), the blue painting, brings us to a moment of surrender and inner struggle. The work evokes the biblical story of calling, flight, and return, yet places it within a contemporary landscape of vast, almost solitary expanses of blue.
The Disguised Paradise presents a richly layered and seemingly idyllic scene that becomes increasingly unsettling the longer one looks. Behind its paradisiacal façade lie masquerade, longing, and vulnerability. It is a sophisticated play between illusion and reality, in which the familiar landscape is subtly disrupted.
Berns' paintings balance on the threshold between recognition and estrangement. Using humour and irony as points of entry, they invite slow looking, allowing unexpected layers and personal resonances to emerge. They are works that carry both lightness and gravity, revealing humanity in all its disguises and desires.
Wouter Berns (1970) sees the world from a slightly different perspective. With a keen eye for detail, a strong creative drive, and a warm sense of humour, he creates paintings that invite people to think—often with a smile.
For more than thirty years, he has been building a distinctive and highly recognisable body of work. His paintings are often playful and light-hearted, yet beneath their youthful surface lies the hand of a classically trained, deeply committed craftsman. As a story painter, he transports viewers into worlds that feel just slightly out of time: sometimes unimaginable, yet never entirely impossible. He draws inspiration from literature, mythology, religion, music, and film. Running through all of his work is a curiosity about how people relate to one another and to the world around them.
Since 1991, Berns has exhibited in galleries and museums in the Netherlands and abroad. He regularly undertakes commissioned projects, ranging from corporate missions and portraits to deeply personal commemorative works, and is frequently invited to give lectures and masterclasses. Alongside his painting practice, he is also a writer. In 2020, he published his debut novel, A Heaven for Theo, in which he continues, in his own associative way, to expand the worlds he first creates in paint.
Wouter Berns lives and works between Kampen and the French Ardennes. In Kampen, where he graduated from the art academy in 1992, he has co-run Galerie Tripmaker with his partner, Marieken Westerink, since 2020—a gallery dedicated to narrative figurative art, with his own work forming its core collection.
CV
Wouter Berns (1970) grew up in Oud-Zevenaar, in the province of Gelderland. After completing his secondary education at Liemers College in Zevenaar, he moved to Kampen in the summer of 1988 to study at the art academy.
From 1988 to 1992, he studied Fine Art Painting at the Constantijn Huygens University of the Arts in Kampen (now ArtEZ University of the Arts). During his studies, he received his first commissions from private clients and companies and participated in a number of exhibitions.
In 1991, he held his first solo exhibition. Since then, he has exhibited in galleries and museums in the Netherlands and abroad. A complete overview of his exhibitions and events can be found on his website.
He works daily in his spacious, light-filled studio on the industrial estate in Kampen and spends part of each year working in his studio in the French Ardennes. On Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, he can often be found at Galerie Tripmaker, which has served as the home gallery for his paintings since 2020.
He regularly gives painting masterclasses, creativity training programmes, guest lectures, and webinars, guiding participants through the boundless world of imagination. Using his own paintings as points of departure, he shares his growing knowledge of creative processes and the path towards a desired artistic outcome. He has done so for institutions and organisations including Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, the Classical Academy Groningen, the Dutch Police, the Dutch Police Academy, SEIN, Almere Correctional Institution, Menzis, service clubs such as Rotary and Lions, as well as numerous SMEs, associations, and foundations.
In 2020, he published his debut novel A Heaven for Theo. His second novel, Faded Brushstrokes, followed in June 2023.