Dutch / Canadian Art Painter
Tobias de Haan (1980) was born in Utrecht, The Netherlands. With its medieval city centre and the tower of the Dom church characterising the skyline, Utrecht greatly influenced De Haan’s early work. Even as a boy listening to hip-hop and painting graffiti, De Haan often drew sketches of the city’s architecture. Later on, when working as a professional painter, his interest in the built environment led him to incorporate famous buildings from around the world into his work.
After a brief spell at the art academy of Utrecht in 2001, De Haan decided to develop himself as a self-taught painter. His first work with oil, Amsterdam In The Future (2001), was completed later that year. The work depicts the city of Amsterdam in an imagined, distant future with the emblematic canal houses merging into towering skyscrapers to form a dazzling cityscape.
In addition to his fascination with architecture, De Haan began painting still lifes in 2002. Initially functioning as a mere exercise to accurately represent light, textures and perspectives, the still lifes soon became a new passion, and artworks in their own right.
From 2010 until his move to Toronto in 2014, De Haan collaborated and exhibited regularly with painter Peter Blom (PB) (1981, Zwolle, NL) also known as former DJ Delic of the Dutch hip-hop formation Opgezwolle.
De Haan won the fifth prize in the category ‘best international art painters’ at the Florence Bienniale in 2007.
He lives and works in Toronto, CA.
