EVERT MEILINK retains happy memories of his parental home, a farm in Gramsbergen. „I still have a strong connection with that farm. As a lover of the country side, I found enough places where I could withdraw myself. The dusky attic, for instance, was such a place where the rules and demands of daily life did not have any influence on me. After a while I started to paint that same attic.”

Evert was born on the 7th of September 1960 and already from a young age he absorbs „everything of nature.” He is also interested in history. „During the summer holidays, I visited all kinds of historical cities in the Netherlands.” At the age of sixteen, Meilink starts working as a painter at the Koninklijke Porceleyne Fles in Delft. Simultaneously, he decides to undergo further training for drawing and painting and Meilink successfully completes an evening course at the Koninklijke Academie for Beeldende Kunsten in Den Haag in 1984.

The artist focuses his attention for a while on the cosmos –planets and stars–, but than moves to the topic “parental home”. Currently, he is involved in painting works that are mainly related to culture and nature of which the latter has gained more and more the upper hand over the last couple of years.

In the village of Burum, close to this atelier, Meilink’s attention is particularly drawn to raves. „These birds do what they like and that attracts me.” Moreover, he is fascinated by animals from Northern Europe such as, for instance, elks. Especially, wolves, raves and owls prickle his imagination and act as a fertile breeding ground for his work. „These animals have in common that they live a mostly hidden life. We only experience them at the edge of our perception of the environment. For me, they represent a savage world that is at odds with our efficiently organised society. I also use these animals as a means of putting my own feelings in my work.”

Movies and books on nature provide the artist with a thorough inside into the behaviour of animals that he would like to depict. Evert makes small sketches of things he experiences, which are helpful when he starts with charcoal drawings on paper or oil paintings on canvas. Rooted in the figurative tradition, Meilink aspires to combine a loose, or easy, style of working with a realistic reproduction. „Gradually, I allow myself a bigger pictorial freedom, but light and shadow keep on playing the leading part in my pictures.”

The artist would like to develop skills that enable him to go beyond the physical painting of the animal to what he himself calls „the immortalizing of the body.” His dream is to make paintings where animals are drawn into the light. Evert Meilink has got the feeling that he is only at the beginning of that process.