The artist

He has shown his work in galleries and exhibitions across Europe. It moves between street and stillness: expressive colour and gesture, underpinned by a search for what beauty does to a person.

For years he made his paintings in his garage workshop in Schiedam. His base is now back in Vlaardingen, the city where he grew up and, since 2026, serves as city poet.

Sander is more than a painter. He has written poetry for over thirty years, raps and makes music with his band Sander Groep, and taught Dutch for years. On stage those worlds meet: word, rhythm and image in a single performance.

The disciplines run into one another. The painting feeds the language, the language feeds the rhythm, and the rhythm feeds the canvas. As he puts it himself: he paints poetry with a brush.