Ton Bouchier’s work revolves around humans; ordinary people that find themselves in ordinary everyday situations. The artist does not shy away from the triviality of daily human life, instead he showcases it. The motifs and the background remain very simple, often only filled with planes of bright colours, and the perspective is skewed and almost flat. The depth in the paintings stems from the the portrayed figures and their expression. Ton Bouchier does not paint idealised, graceful or heroic characters. Quite the opposite, the portrayed figures are usually stocky, asymmetrical and strangely angular males, yet instead of brutish they come of as somewhat uncertain and awkward, as if they themselves are unsure about the world they find themselves in.
“The work of Ton Bouchier is not about somebody else, but in the first place about himself and his relationship with the world. And because his world does not differ fundamentally from our world, we effortlessly recognize the situations he paints us. The concealed grief, the small distresses, security, disappointment, silence, waiting, standing, sitting, sleeping, thinking. They are not world-shaking events, but they are things which decide and give colour to our daily, lower-middle class life.”
Rudy Hodel, excerpt from the book ‘Ton Bouchier”
