Tobias De Haan

Tobias de Haan, about the artist

Born in The Netherlands in a typical Dutch city called Utrecht. The cities architecture had an enormous impact on Tobias’s artistic expressions as a child.
Fascinated by the medieval church tower, the different canals, and the upcoming modern office buildings architecture became an often returning element in early drawings and sketches.

Later in life as a teenager, when Tobias started travelling around the world, other famous buildings and cities from across the world would find their place in pen sketches, drawings and sometimes works of graffiti.
After a short attendance at The Art Academy of Utrecht in the year 2000, he decided later that same year that continuing studying wouldn’t help him to become the artist he wanted to be; as the Academy, in general, was more abstract orientated and stimulated the more non-figurative forms of artistic expression, he became more fascinated by the realistic and surrealistic streams in art.

It was at this time that Tobias came to the realization that if he wanted to become a realistic art painter in the long tradition of Dutch realistic and surrealistic master painters, he had to study and master these techniques by himself.

From 2001 when Tobias finished his first painting (Amsterdam in the Future) up until today, he never left the realistic/ surrealistic style.
Also, the technique he uses remains the same: Oil on canvas or sometimes oil on panel.
According to the artist himself, this style in combination with the materials he uses still remains the best way for him to create a painting that captures a view of a world that he wants to show to his audience.

In 2007, after numerous expositions in The Netherlands, Tobias participated at the Florence Biennale, Italy where he won the fifth prize and received the Lorenzo il Magnifico award.
After this, Tobias' work was also to be admired at several international expositions.

Since moving to Toronto, Canada in 2014, The city of Toronto with its fast-evolving skyline became an important and returning source of inspiration in paintings created by Tobias.
Capturing the cities elegance as it is right now or creating a more imaginary perspective on the cities past or possible future, seems to have become a new and important theme in later works.

As Tobias plans to visit other Canadian cities and places in the nearby future, he expects the diverse Canadas' landscape to become a new source of inspiration for future paintings.