Light on the Land
When you think of the Dutch Bollenstreek, you probably picture endless fields of colourful flowers. But for much of the year, the landscape looks completely different. Rough, dark soil, greenhouses outlined in almost graphic lines, and an enormous sky stretching above them.
Yet this is the landscape I keep coming back to.
What happens beneath the surface
As I trudge through the fields in my boots, I often find myself looking at the greenhouses. At the light falling on the glass, the repetition of lines, and the almost black earth where so much is already growing, long before anything becomes visible.
Above ground, the landscape can seem bare and deserted, while beneath the surface, all sorts of things are already happening.
I can spend ages looking at a piece of land like this. The shapes, the light, the colours shifting as a cloud passes overhead. These are the images I carry back to my studio.
From landscape to painting
Back in my studio, things start to change. I don’t feel the need to reproduce exactly what I saw outside. Colours become more intense, shapes shift, and sometimes almost everything I originally had in mind disappears.
I push the paint around, scratch into it and paint over it again. Some areas build up into thick layers, while others remain open. Sometimes I follow what happens on the canvas. Sometimes I paint right over it.
Gradually, I create my own reality. Not the Dutch flower fields as you might see them on a postcard, but the way they’ve somehow stayed with me, somewhere in my head.
85 × 110 cm – Leonoor Ruigrok
Light on the Land
I’ve placed two photographs next to each other. One shows me in my studio working with Light on the Land. The other shows the greenhouses and rough soil I regularly pass on my walks. I like seeing them together. The landscape I walked through and the painting I made from it.
You can still recognise the greenhouses, but the colours, shapes and movement have changed quite a bit along the way. I wouldn’t want it any other way.
See the painting in my studio
On Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 November 2026, my husband and I are organising an Open Studio Weekend at Het Landje in Voorhout, as part of the Dutch National Atelier Weekend.
Light on the Land will be on display, alongside original paintings, works on paper and recent experiments with different materials and sculptural forms. Up close, you can see the layers of paint, scratches and small details that often get lost in a photograph. You’re welcome between 10:00 AM and 5:00 PM. No appointment needed.
Open studio weekend
More information and directions:
https://laceruig.nl/open-studio-voorhout/