About the artist
About the Artist
Art has always been part of my life.
I was born into a family of artists where creativity was never regarded as a profession, but as a natural way of life. My father, Gerard Bruning, and my mother, Wilna Haffmans, were both sculptors. Growing up surrounded by sculpture, craftsmanship and artistic inquiry shaped the way I see the world and continues to influence my practice today.
Although I was accepted into the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, I soon discovered that traditional education was not where I learned best. I am largely self-taught. My greatest teachers have always been curiosity, experimentation and the countless hours spent creating.
My studio became my university.
For more than fifteen years, I worked from my studio in Venlo, where I developed my own visual language through painting, experimentation and artistic research.
Later, I founded Hillywood Factory Art & Music in Hilversum, a creative space where visual art and music came together. During those years, I had the privilege of photographing internationally renowned musicians, with my work published in more than thirty music magazines.
In 2001, I began Mona Lisa Project, an ongoing artistic practice that would become the foundation of my work.
What started as a single painting evolved into a long-term exploration of identity, technology, cultural memory and the changing world around us.
Each new work responds to its own moment in time, allowing the practice to evolve alongside the society in which it is created.
On 30 October 2018, my father's birthday, I founded Studio Florentijn.
It did not mark the beginning of my artistic journey, but the moment everything I had created over the years found a home.
In 2020, the pandemic forced me to leave my studio.
What initially felt like an ending became the beginning of a new chapter in my artistic practice.
I immersed myself in digital media, often spending twelve hours a day exploring new techniques and expanding my visual language.
During this period, Mona Lisa Project entered a new phase through digital art, while I also developed an extensive body of original surface pattern designs that later became the foundation of my Pattern Library.
After my mother passed away, life slowed down once again.
I moved to the Mediterranean coast, where silence, long walks by the sea and time for reflection opened the door to a new chapter in my artistic practice.
It was there that my books began to emerge and Earth Keepers Collection revealed itself naturally.
Rather than being carefully planned, these works grew from a deep connection with nature and a desire to create art that invites stillness, awareness and wonder.
Today, Studio Florentijn brings together the different bodies of work that have grown from my artistic practice. From Mona Lisa Project and Earth Keepers Collection to publications, pattern design and wearable art, each collection explores a different aspect of the same ongoing artistic journey.
Although they differ in form and medium, they are united by a shared intention: to create work that encourages reflection, invites deeper observation and offers space for wonder.
I believe that art has the power not only to transform the spaces we inhabit, but also the way we experience ourselves, one another and the world around us.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Every artist returns to certain questions throughout a lifetime.
For more than twenty-five years, I have returned to one of the most recognisable images in the history of art. Not to recreate Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece, but to explore how a single image can continue to reflect an ever-changing world.
Mona Lisa Project began as a painting in 2001 and gradually evolved into an ongoing artistic practice spanning painting, digital media and artificial intelligence. As new technologies emerged, they became part of the practice—not as a destination, but as new ways of asking the same enduring questions.
At the heart of my work lies an exploration of identity, technology and cultural memory. I am interested in the relationship between images and human experience, and in the ways visual culture continually reshapes our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
The Mona Lisa has remained one of the world's most recognisable images for more than five centuries. Every generation sees something different in her. Rather than preserving an icon, I use it as a living framework through which contemporary society can be observed, questioned and reimagined.
I see my work not as a series of individual artworks, but as an evolving artistic practice. Each new work becomes part of a larger conversation, reflecting the moment in which it was created while contributing to a body of work that continues to grow over time.
Although my practice now embraces painting, digital media and artificial intelligence, the central question remains unchanged:
Can a single image continue to tell the story of humanity?
I believe that art does not preserve the past.
It creates a dialogue between the past, the present and what is yet to come.
Curriculum Vitae
Florentijn Bruning
Contemporary Artist
Born
1963, Cuijk, The Netherlands
Based
The Netherlands & Spain
Practice
Painting · Digital Media · Artificial Intelligence · Pattern Design
Selected Projects
- Mona Lisa Project (2001–present)
- Earth Keepers Collection
- Pattern Library
- Author of Hocus Pocus Focus
Studio
Founder of Studio Florentijn (2018)
Previous Initiatives
Founder of Hillywood Factory Art & Music, Hilversum
Publications
Author of books on creativity, personal development and artistic practice.
Press
Photography and interviews published in more than 30 international music magazines.
Collections
Works held in private collections in Europe and internationally.