Nyssen Johan

Johan Nyssen was a Belgian artist born in Bruges in 1939 and died in Bruges in 2011. He was a painter, draftsman, pastelist, gouachist, ceramist and sculptor. He studied decorative arts, sculpture, painting and ceramics at Sint-Lucas in Ghent (1953-1958), after which he followed further education at the Academy in Cologne during his military service (1959-1960). He placed the human figure or an aesthetically developed female face at the center of his works, surrounding them with attributes that are symbolic, but also used aesthetic touches and touches of nostalgia.
Nature is also present in the background, and it always produces a few symbols. His works exude poetry, dream and fantasy. From the press: ‘J.N. has developed its own world in which nature and people play the leading role. Sometimes that human being is an aesthetic fact, at other times it is a creature with a magical appearance and something mysterious. His scenes express as much torment as pure aesthetics.” He was a designer of ceramic objects for a company in Beernem (1958-1965) and a teacher at the Ter Groene Poorte Training Institute in Sint-Michiels/Brugge (1979-1985). In 1985 he founded a private academy, J. Nyssen, together with the sculptress and interior architect Els Baeke. He is listed in the Lexicon of West Flemish visual artists v. (Piron)