Stefano Langerak, a self-taught Dutch artist, has an extraordinary ability to embrace the expressive languages and tenderly confront the restless storm within him. The artist’s journey with creative expression is also characterized by his exploratory practices of studying new cultures, which represent his restless style and adventurous soul, yearning to discover and investigate new meanings in life.

One of the new meanings for Stefano’s life is painting – through the experimentation of brushstrokes in contrast with paint and color, he finally managed to alleviate this innate restlessness within his body. A journey through the artist’s vision of the world and its colors, an endless search for the perfect tonality that is synthesized in red, orange, and yellow and their shades. The monochromatic saturation of Stefano’s work contrasts with his creative process, initiated with blue. Deviation, chance, and acceptance are elements that were part of the artwork and its creation process of “Piece of Mind.”

“Piece of Mind” responds to the need for pure aesthetic freedom and artistic sensitivity. Brushstrokes and textures flow across the entire canvas, creating a transition from one tone to another, from one color to another. The interplay of analogies – the top of the painting presents light that gradually darkens towards the lower right corner, bringing a sense of movement and change.

The painting, executed using a palette knife technique on canvas, immediately captures attention through its vibrant and dynamic presence. The fiery tones of red are arranged in a ballet of shades and movements, creating an intense sensation of expanding energy. The bold and broad strokes of the palette knife add a sense of gesture and spontaneous motion, lending the artwork an almost choreographic quality.

Stefano plays with light and the nature of colors, a kind of dance of infinite possibilities and gestures. The artist questions the traditionally established limits in artistic perception rituals: vision loses its hegemony and incorporates sensations derived from red and its tonalities.

From the canvas initiated with blue and finished with red, it satirizes life, embracing its dichotomies and the cyclical changes of our choices. Red evokes the idea of blood, vivacity, warmth, and agitation. It is emotion, strength, vitality, and freedom. According to the philosopher Bachelard, red can also evoke the reverie of fire; “Among all phenomena, it is truly the only one capable of receiving so distinctly the two opposing valuations: good and evil. It is sweetness and torment.”

Stefano Langerak’s artistic odyssey beckons us to delve into the depths of human expression and perception, inviting us to reflect upon the profound connection between colors, emotions, and the intricate tapestry of life itself.

In the artwork “Peace of Mind” by Stefano Langerak, a window opens to the fiery and intrinsic world of human emotions. With the brush as a guide and the canvas as a frame for his visions, the artist delves into the intensity and depth of red hues, invoking the warmth and strength of fire and flames.