Artist Statement
Beyond the visible
My work departs from decades of precision and representation. Craftsmanship remains, but control no longer does.
I work between painting and photography. I magnify painted surfaces until form begins to dissolve. What starts as texture and color shifts into presence — something unstable, neither fully abstract nor fully figurative.
I am not trying to tell a story. I am not trying to explain. I stay with the moment before meaning settles.
An image stops me when it begins to breathe — when it stands on its own and resists being fixed. That is when I step back.
Meaning does not live in what is shown.
It’s left unresolved.
Beyond the visible, to what is truly felt.
— Eric Rugers
Biography
Eric Rugers (b. 1970, Melbourne) is a Netherlands-based hybrid abstract artist working between painting and photography.
His images begin in layered painted surfaces. He photographs them in extreme close-up until form starts to loosen. Texture becomes presence. Color and light destabilize the frame — something neither fully abstract nor fully figurative.
After more than thirty years in illustration and design, Rugers retains a precise sense of composition and chromatic balance — but no longer works in service of control. In 2022, he left applied precision behind and committed fully to an autonomous fine-art practice.
Working within perceptualism, he creates images that resist narration and refuse explanation. Forms appear, dissolve and shift in the act of looking.
Influenced by Turner’s light, Rothko’s chromatic depth, Matisse’s structural clarity, and the Japanese aesthetics of yūgen and ma, his work asks for slow looking and rewards sustained attention.
His work was shortlisted and acquired by the Museum of Avant-garde (Switzerland) and received the Silver Prize in ArtAscent’s international Abstraction competition.
In Conversation
The Door to Resonance: Eric RugersFeatured in The Ambrosia Journal, Ambrose Creatives.
Read the full interview
Recognition and Exhibitions
2026 — UNFIXED, Ambrose Creatives (online exhibition)
2026 — NOCKNOCK Art Fair, Amsterdam
2025 — Silver Prize, ArtAscent (Abstraction)
2025 — Antanas Sutkus MA-g Award (Shortlisted)
2025 — Hungry Eye Fair, Amsterdam
2024 — Graciela Iturbide MA-g Award (Finalist)
Works acquired by the Museum of Avant-garde, Switzerland
EDITIONS