Albert Willem, Part 1, Cruising Winter Wonderland, 2023

"Albert Willem's winter scenes are among the most popular with buyers, selling at an average of 10 to 15 times above their low estimates. Of Willem's top 5 highest sale prices, 4 of them are winter scenes." - James Kerbey, Expert at Maddox Advisory

Why Albert Willem?
Bélgica (1979)
Albert Willem, is a contemporary figurative artist from Brussels known for his naïve-style paintings full of wit and humor. Despite never having any formal art training, he often visited galleries and museums and was constantly looking at art on social media. He drew a lot as a child but never touched a pencil from the ages of 12 to 36. University and family life distracted him from art, but about four years ago, Willem decided to paint something to decorate his own home. He enjoyed it and has not stopped painting since. All of his spare time goes towards his art. He described returning to his practice as a “midlife crisis.”

Style
Over the years, he has experimented with a variety of mediums and styles, from nail polish to spray paint to textile art. Nowadays, Willem primarily works with acrylic paint coupled with a high gloss varnish, finding that this results in the strongest colors. Most of his works are on canvas, but the artist also recycles cardboard from online purchases to use as his base. His artistic process is quick, completing his works within 48 hours at most.

About his paintings
The paintings are simple, unvarnished, sometimes half-baked. On the one hand, they boldly assert that the artist’s technical skill dawdles emphatically at an elementary level. On the other, he is able to harness the distilled, pure energy of a novice who is unconcerned with competing against the canon, and therefore, the works are absent of pretense. His works depict everyday life in a light-hearted yet ironic manner, often avoiding more complex themes. His works often show humorous moments in everyday life, such as people fighting at a wedding or an infinite conga line. He draws on humor to cope with his past and present fears, including a fear of dance floors. His painting style is heavily influenced by the likes of LS Lowry, James Ensor, and Breugel the Elder, incorporating a sense of normalcy and primitivism while bringing a 21st-century twist. Willem has exhibited his works in Germany, Russia, and Belgium.

The infinite Conga
In January 2021, the artist began painting a ‘never-ending conga line’. In this work, the artist places several pieces of cardboard next to each other and paints a long, single line of dancing figures. The artist continuously adds more pieces with more dancers so that each piece makes the conga line longer. The work can be split for purchase so that buyers might each own portions of the dance and share the art together.

The rise of a star
Willem credits social media as the largest influence on his artistic practice. He spends at least two hours every day looking and learning from other artists. He says that by regularly seeing new art, his art is constantly evolving. He is continuously experimenting with new styles, themes, and techniques. ‘Try out all kinds of things yourself and then you will eventually arrive at a personal style.’ - Willem.

Presence at auctions
Albert Willem's rise to fame has been nothing short of remarkable. Even he himself was surprised by his success, remarking to Artnet News, "This being the 21st century, a lot of crazy things happen in the world. I guess this is just another." His debut painting Pilgrim Street 8 (2021), which had an estimate of $8,000 to $12,000, sold for an astounding $69,000. Willem’s works have been consistently outpacing their estimates by a factor of 10 or more. His current record was achieved at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, where his piece Snowbound (2021) raked in a staggering $225,000, on an estimate of $13,000 to $19,000. Of the 14 works that sold at auction in 2022, half have sold for more than $150,000, despite having estimates in the range of $10,000 to $15,000.


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