"Outside the painting, all kinds of things are happening that become part of the work. It can be friends, family, food, music or poetry.”
Ide André (b. 1990, Ede, The Netherlands) lives and works in Arnhem, The Netherlands. He graduated in 2015 from the Performance Department at ArtEZ University of the Arts in Arnhem, where he was tutored by Alicia Framis. His graduation work was featured in Metropolis M in the issue Best of Graduates 2015. Since then, André has developed a distinctive painterly practice rooted in performance, gesture, and the residue of action.
André’s paintings emerge from energetic physical acts. Each work can be understood as the sediment of movement — traces of force recorded on canvas like visual scores or seismographic registrations. His process often involves ropes, cables, and other tools that leave rough, dynamic marks across the surface. These gestures are not spontaneous in a romantic sense, but part of what the artist describes as an “arrested action”: a decisive moment that has already taken place. The viewer encounters the aftermath - the echo, the reverberation - rather than the act itself.
Although frequently described as direct, André’s paintings operate indirectly. They function as afterimages - shadows, reflections, or negatives of an event that has already dissolved. His long-standing interest in “the act in painting,” a subject he explored during his studies, continues to inform his work. The paintings carry the energy of an excess that is no longer visible, like debris after a celebration: evidence of intensity, rhythm, and release.
Colour plays a crucial role in this transfer of energy. As described in the publication Crackling Gum on my Tongue (Risowiso), the interaction of colour generates a tangible, almost audible sensation - a crackling presence that activates the viewer’s perception. André refers to this resonance as “Real Rhythm Rhymes”, emphasising the musical and performative qualities embedded in his painterly language.
André has exhibited widely in the Netherlands and Germany, with solo presentations at institutions and galleries including Museum of Young Art (MOYA), Billytown (The Hague), Gerhard Hofland (Amsterdam), Studio Omstand (Arnhem), Park (Tilburg), and Galerie Plaatsmaken (Arnhem). He has participated in group exhibitions at Kunsthaus Essen (DE), Museum EICAS (Deventer), NEST (The Hague), and Art Rotterdam, among others. In 2025, his work was presented in the solo exhibition Blow by Blow at MOYA, Oosterhout.
In 2018 André received the Sieger White Award from the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds. He has been supported multiple times by the Mondriaan Fund, including receiving the Young Talent Grant (2017) and the Basisbeurs (2021). His work is included in several prominent collections, including the Province of Gelderland Art Collection and De Groen Fine Art Collection.
Alongside his artistic practice, André is active as an educator and mentor. He is a tutor in the Painting Department at ArtEZ AKI in Enschede and has held various advisory and board positions within the Dutch art field.
Through a practice that merges performance and painting, Ide André continuously explores how action transforms into image - how energy becomes surface, and how rhythm can remain visible long after the sound has faded.