Arnaud Kool, Splash in the Rain, 2013, Acrylic on Canvas

Illustrator and painter living in Brussels, Arnaud Kool begins artistic studies at Saint-Luc at the age of 15, then attended the famous Brussels artistic academy “La Cambre”. In parallel, he flourishes by painting in the streets.

In 2008, the artist decides to work in his own place. Being alone in front of the canvas, painting on definite formats, change is radical. The result is surprising: abstract paintings with vivid colors, far from the figurative style of his characters. “Abstract painting has allowed me to break with the recurring themes of graffiti” says the artist.

In 2009, Charles Antoine Bodson and Cédric Emelinckx present him to the public. For his first exhibition, the artist shows a very different style. Defining himself as instinctive, nearer from the figurative style that he considers to be sometimes naïve and anecdotic, the abstraction forces him to go out the frame, to leave a place for mystery, for anonymity, for the unusual. Through more or less defined characters, he oscillates from concrete to abstract in the same work. The rhythm and the contrasts are striking.

After a second exhibition in 2012 at the Bodson gallery, Arnaud Kool presented his studio work of the last three years at the Coppens Workshops where he reconnected with graffiti. Since then, he has been collaborating with the Parisian collective “Quai 36” which decorates the cities of France.