Ger Doornink

Shinrin-Yoku - 21st Century, Contemporary, Figurative, Portrait Painting, Oil

2023

Ger Doornink (b. 1949 in Aalten, Netherlands) is a versatile, multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans painting, illustration and photography. He studied Art and Advertising at the Arnhem Academy of Arts. He began his professional career in design and fashion photography, working under the pseudonym Gerry the Cat, famous for his pioneering works with airbrush and countless cover designs in the world's greatest glossy magazines. Dutch students nowadays are taught about Gerry the Cat's innovative approach to graphic design and art direction in the eighties. Doornink has lived in Milan for extended periods of time and has also spent 4 years living in Tokyo. These periods abroad deeply influenced his aesthetic and approach. His works merge influences from Western masters - such as Rembrandt and, to some extent, Van Gogh - with Eastern aesthetics, especially Japanese style. One of his stylistic references is cloisonism - painting with flat colours bounded by strong outlines, minimal background perspective. Doornink creates large-scale portraits, mostly of women, in which he explores emotion, identity, beauty and expression. Technically, he works in layered media: oil, acrylic, chalk, water, etc., and mixes different materials to give texture, like exquisite Japanese handmade papers, coarse jute and other textile fabrics in his paintings. Ger Doornink is represented by Villa del Arte Galleries in Barcelona and Bodrum, and by two partner dealers in The Netherlands. His most recent solo-exhibitions where held in The Netherlands in May 2025 titled The Look, in 2024 in Amsterdam titled Thoughts and in 2023 also in Amsterdam titled Changes - next to his appearance at internationally renowned art-fairs such as Contemporary Istanbul.