Corné Akkers – On Light and Shadow to Neo Deco and Roundism

“I once tried to learn to draw. It took two painful months until I understood how light and shadow work in a drawing. I simply focused on an object, found a spot where the light fell on it, and expressed the contrast within the object. Two months weren't enough to fully grasp the concept, and out of frustration, I finally decided to quit.”

It is inconceivable that the artist Corné Akkers – who seems to handle light and shadow masterfully in his extensive oeuvre – has no formal art training. It appears to us as viewers that acquiring such skills to depict what Akkers primarily creates – abstract nudes – would require considerable time and effort .

The artist and his unmistakable style

Corné Akkers was born in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, in 1969 and has been painting and drawing since childhood. However, he only pursued this profession at the age of 35, after leaving behind a promising career as a lawyer to dedicate his life to art.

Since then, his artistic practice has employed a variety of styles, all of which have one thing in common: the search for a perfect interplay of shadow and light layers on human skin.

His works vary in tone, soft and blended color gradients in oil, pastel, and graphite pencil to create the illusion of depth and mass. It is striking that he uses only black, white, and shades of gray in his drawings and very few colors in his paintings.

This unique feature allows his works to emphasize contrast more effectively. Abstraction plays an important role in Akker's art.

The Dutch artist – who, strictly speaking, could be categorically classified as Naïve Painting – does not merely view the world superficially; he presents his objects in circular lines and cubist forms to emphasize volume and space and to break up the dimensionality of his objects.

Corné Akker's path to a stylistic mix of Impressionism, Cubism and Neo Deco

To understand Akker's current mix of styles, we must look at his beginnings, influences, and the evolution of his naive painting.

His early interest in drawing and painting was likely instilled in him by his parents, who were very progressive and belonged to the hippie movement. In the early 1970s, they took young Akkers to museums and galleries. As a result, he began drawing cartoons at a young age, initially cowboys, followed by portraits and sketches of models in the 1980s and 1990s.

Oil painting intensified after the turn of the millennium. In the last ten years, drawing and painting have gone hand in hand.

His works are dominated by the search for light, shadow, and the geometry of forms. The result is a synthesis of techniques from the stylistic periods Art Deco, Cubism, and Abstract Expressionism , combined with a healthy dose of poetic expression.

Which artists and movements exerted the greatest influence?

Akkers was influenced by many sources of inspiration outside the academic art world. He himself describes his interest in art as hybrid and not bound to formal educational criteria.

The Dutchman tends to be versatile, combining the traditional skills of the Old Masters with those of the modernists.

He names, in random order, the following artists to whom he feels drawn: Van Eyck, Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Ingres, Monet, Degas, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Mondrian, Sluijters, Gestel, Dali, De Lempicka and several more.

According to him, the movements that mainly inspire him are Impressionism (hence the search for light), Pointillism, Cubism (obviously), Surrealism and a little bit of good old 17th-century Realism.

In fact, his personal style of Roundism an eclectic combination of Cubism and Impressionism.

As a viewer of his more recent works (2022-2024), I can also find elements from the opulent era of Art Deco.

Speaking of naive art: Is it possible in art, and therefore also in painting, to ignore the study of the classics?

“Actually not,”Akkers immediately clarifies. He then cites popular examples to support his statement:

• Paul McCartney claimed that his song "Blackbird" was based on a misinterpreted Bach Bourrée.

• John Lennon derived many of his melodies from old Liverpool fishermen's songs.

• Picasso was inspired by African masks when he created Demoiselles d'Avignon, making it the first true Cubist work of art.

• Monet met Vermeer at the Mauritshuis near The Hague.

The list could go on forever. We all stand on the shoulders of artists who came before us

so Akkers.

What role does design play in Akkers' art?

In the Roundist style, design plays an important role. In fact, the nudes I sketch are merely the starting point for creating decorative drawings. Once the drawing is successful, I work it out in oil, carefully selecting the colors. I hope that my works, composed of characteristic swirls and colors, are more recognizable as my signature style than the nude itself

The artist revealed this in an interview in the Italian GP Magazine in April 2023.

Evolution – How Akker's painting technique changed over time

Corné Akkers began drawing portraits and nudes in the 1980s, inspired by the Degas drawings he saw at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

His father challenged him at the time to find a new style and work towards it. So he immersed himself in abstraction, his preferred way of seeing art. At the same time, he assumed that his impressionistic style was sufficiently developed and that it was now time to reconsider it.

We artists risk repeating ourselves and creating a “mannerism” of inferior quality.”

Cubism, which he had always loved, helped him during this phase, starting anew with detailed painting and even painting with thick splashes of color.

What has also changed in this context is the time that the artist now spends on a painting:

I spend significantly less time on a work of art than I did twenty years ago, so I can do and experiment even more.”

In the following video, filmed directly from his studio, you can watch the painter at work on his version of the Mexican icon Frida Kahlo :

What is Akker's view on the state of contemporary art?

I think that the love of craftsmanship is missing in contemporary art. I teach students at art academies how to learn to draw models. Clay studies, knowledge of the color wheel—everything is considered outdated and obsolete today, while art chases after current trends and becomes increasingly arbitrary

According to Akkers, art clearly lacks the ability to attract genuine attention. He believes this is primarily because many famous artists copy a particular style that has proven commercially successful.

This leads to a jungle of repetitive artistic hocus-pocus, in which truly groundbreaking and disruptive art falls by the wayside.

Where can I admire artworks by Corné Akkers?

In recent years, Akkers has exhibited his work at art fairs in China and primarily exhibits online. You can find and purchase the artist's works here in the online gallery Kunstplaza as well as directly from Artfinder

He categorically rejects offers from art exhibitions for which artists would have to pay commissions in advance. On the other hand, he is always open to exhibitions and collaborations with gallery owners.

Corné Akkers at the opening of the Ludens Gallery in Voorburg, Netherlands, in January 2024:

In the meantime, he works almost exclusively on commission. Corné Akkers currently works as an artist in The Hague and as an art teacher in Voorburg, South Holland, Netherlands.