‘I strive to make pictures no one has ever seen before – including or perhaps especially myself. Sometimes I do this by using subject matter that is stubbornly disjointed. Sometimes I build from a foundation of common knowledge from the collective subconscious to create something that has never been depicted visually. Sometimes an image that has been interpreted by artists for centuries seems ripe for a renovation. I attempt to paint the archetypical moment of clarity and passion, but above all else imagery must be made exciting and alive. The rules of lighting, anatomy, gravity and physics must be bent or broken to make the picture loud. That is the ultimate goal of my work.’

This is how Van Arno describes his paintings in the introduction to the 2008 collection of his work, Volume, which includes many of the paintings we have chosen to showcase his work, starting with a selection of the 1990s Olive Oyl series and moving through mythical and historical subjects to large-scale artworks inspired by well-known painters of historical scenes.

Van Arno’s 66-page anthology Volume, with text by the artist and commentary by Shana Nys-Dambrot, can be bought from Blurb publishing from this link. It was intended to be the first of a series, but sadly the project was cut short by Van Arno’s untimely death.