Working from a studio that spills into his garden, Aldo van den Broek’s paintings are shaped by the natural forces of rain, sun, soil, and time. His practice is an evolving dialogue between chaos and control, decay and rebirth. Using found materials, discarded objects, and moments of chance, Aldo creates layered works that feel raw, intimate, and alive —  fragments of both his own story reflected upon our society’s currents. In this conversation, he speaks about his unconventional approach to making art, the emotional landscapes embedded in his work, and why he believes beauty often lies in the places we overlook.

What drives your choice of materials?

I work with what’s already failed. Cardboard, rusted metal, wood, cigarette butts – they’ve already lived through something. I’m not drawn to untouched surfaces. I want materials that have been used, discarded, changed by time. They carry tension. You can feel that in the structure. I don’t use them to symbolize ruin. They’re just honest. They resist being flattened into images, and they push me around. Agency going back and forth between me painting and the collection of materials that becomes an object. Like life, it’s the challenge and the dialogue that shapes its soul.

How does your process typically unfold?

Slowly. Nothing is planned. I collect fragments, live with them, rearrange them until something shifts. I leave pieces out in the rain, let them warp or tear. Some sit in the studio for years before I touch them again. I keep multiple works open at once. They’re not compositions – they’re built conditions. A finished work doesn’t feel resolved. It just holds its weight. If it looks finished, I’ve gone too far. Then I put it in the garden for a while and let it breathe. A good piece should feel like it could still fall apart.

How do you approach human presence in your work?

Indirectly. My focus isn’t in individual psychology. I’m more drawn to what happens when identity is shaped by a system – institutions, architecture, roles. Sometimes a face appears, or a figure. But mostly they aren’t portraits. They’re functions. Judge, father, patient, soldier – positions people inhabit. I want to know what’s left when those positions collapse. The courtroom, the psych ward, the family home – same architecture, different uniforms.

What role does personal experience play in your work?

It’s always there, but not in obvious ways. I’ve lived in places that have broken down—politically, emotionally, structurally. I’ve been close to parenthood, to psychiatric wards, to post-conflict zones. These experiences shape how I work, how I see, but the goal is never autobiography. I have a rule: a good work either personalizes the universal or universalizes the personal.

Decay is central in my work—not just physical decay, but emotional, societal, structural. For me, decay isn’t an end; it’s part of a process. When something breaks down, it forces a reconstruction. That’s identity. That’s life. I’m drawn to materials that have already lived—scraps from the street, torn fabric, weathered surfaces—because they carry stories. I don’t see them as discarded or broken; I see them as continuing. I try to give them a second life, a new purpose, by embedding them in the work.

And it’s the same with people. I often paint those who are seen by society as ‘broken’—people on the fringes, overlooked, judged. But I paint them with care, with softness. I want to show the dark and the light that coexists in everyone, whether it’s a stranger I meet on the street or a white-collar businessman with a polished exterior and internal fractures. Everyone has layers. Everyone has history. And everyone deserves to be seen—fully.

How do you see the relationship between systems and fragility?

Every system has a point where it starts to show cracks. That’s where I begin. I’ve worked inside institutions where care turns into control. I’ve studied architecture meant to symbolize permanence – now crumbling, re-inhabited, or ignored. Systems collapse. Roles, relationships fall apart. What interests me is what survives the fallout and where our fragile renewal begins.

Beauty shows up uninvited, usually when everything else has failed.

How do you know when a piece is finished?

When it stops asking for something. When I can’t interfere without dulling it. That’s not about balance – it’s about resistance.