Cees van Rutten (XX) - #2

Cees van Rutten is a Dutch visual artist (born 1952) who is best known for his abstract, rhythmic, and minimalist work. He works with repetition, structure and subtle variations within geometric patterns, which gives his work a distinctive poetic and personal quality.

Education and style
Van Rutten studied graphic design at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.

His work is characterized by clear rhythmic structures, often built up from stacks or repetitions of shapes with a strong focus on light and shadow play.

He enjoys playing with contrasts: neat versus frayed, smooth versus rough, orderly versus disturbed — giving his seemingly orderly works a personal and poetic dimension.

Historically in art history his work is sometimes associated with the Zero (Nul) art movement, but it remains clearly individual and handmade in character.

Themes and materials
Van Rutten experiments with different materials and techniques:
He makes reliefs and objects from paper, textiles, threads and everyday materials such as sticks or rope.
Some series are geometrically constructed according to mathematical systems (for example using the golden ratio) but deliberately contain small deviations or distortions, which makes the work human and organic.