Landscapes of Becoming
I’m proud to present Landscape of Becoming, a virtual solo exhibition by Christiaan van Ruyven, now opening at CaroArtVirtualGallery.
In this exhibition, painting unfolds as a process rather than a destination. Through layered gestures and intuitive movement, Van Ruyven creates landscapes that are not depicted, but felt — inner terrains shaped by colour, memory and atmosphere rather than geography.
Forms emerge, dissolve and reappear, resisting fixed meaning or finality. Colour flows and collides, opening spaces of transition and resonance. What is revealed is not an image to be decoded, but a state to be entered — a landscape that remains in motion.
Landscape of Becoming invites viewers to slow down and enter a state of becoming. Meaning unfolds through attention and time, allowing perception to shift from looking to sensing. Within the virtual environment, visitors are free to navigate the works in their own rhythm, encountering painting as an open, fluid experience.
About the exhibition
In Landscape of Becoming, Christiaan van Ruyven approaches painting as an open process rather than a finished statement. His works unfold gradually, shaped by gesture, intuition and the physical experience of colour. Rather than depicting landscapes, Van Ruyven creates spaces that are felt — inner terrains where atmosphere, memory and movement converge.
Colour plays a central role in this practice. It functions not as surface or ornament, but as structure: flowing, colliding and dissolving to create rhythm and spatial tension. Forms emerge only to recede again, resisting fixed meaning or narrative closure. What remains is a state of becoming — fluid, unresolved and continuously in motion.
Living and working in the French countryside has deeply influenced this evolution. The natural environment is not translated literally, but absorbed through shifting light, subtle tonal transitions and the quiet pulse of the land. These elements resurface in paintings that feel both expansive and intimate, echoing the rhythms of nature while remaining firmly rooted in subjective experience.
Within the virtual context of CaroArtVirtualGallery, Landscape of Becoming gains an additional dimension. The immersive environment allows viewers to navigate the works in their own rhythm, encouraging sustained attention and sensory engagement. The exhibition invites slowing down — to inhabit colour, to follow movement, and to experience painting as a space of transformation rather than representation.
About the artist
Christiaan van Ruyven is a painter whose work explores colour as an experiential force rather than a descriptive tool.
His practice moves between abstraction and landscape, focusing on atmosphere, rhythm and the emotional resonance of colour and form. After relocating to the French countryside, Van Ruyven’s work shifted from more structured, graphic compositions toward an intuitive and fluid painterly language. Nature functions as a source of influence rather than subject matter — absorbed through light, weather, tonal shifts and the physical presence of the landscape.
Van Ruyven paints from intuition, allowing forms to emerge organically through gesture and movement. His works are not intended as illustrations or metaphors, but as spaces of experience. Each painting becomes a fictional yet familiar world, rooted in reality while opening toward imagination and inner perception.
Central to his practice is a sincere and direct relationship with painting itself. Rather than intellectual explanation, his work arises from the desire to paint — to shape images and colours as they appear, and to allow meaning to unfold through the act of looking. His paintings invite viewers to slow down, breathe and enter a state of attentive presence.
