I am perceiving things
that others do not.

My name is John Stam — a self-taught artist from Rotterdam, The Netherlands, born in May 1974.

I work in oil and acrylic on canvas, painting the world the way it appears from inside — my inner life put on a wall where it can be looked at.

I'm an introvert. Painting is how I speak when words won't do. Each canvas is a sentence I'd rather not say out loud.

My work is deeply influenced by surrealism and magic realism — two traditions that take the ordinary and tilt it just enough for the dream to fall in.

For as long as I can remember I've felt different. I perceive things that others do not — faces and figures in clouds and trees, a mouth in a shadow, a body in a branch. I keep what I see, and I paint it back.

"If you stand in front of a painting long enough, it begins to look back."

— John Stam