Lourents Oybur was born and raised in small village in Borneo, Indonesia. As a boy he loved and lived nature to the fullest, always fascinated by the different colours of the butterfly, and the rest of the animal kingdom such as the Many species of colorful birds, snakes etc, not to mention all the flowers and plants.
Being interested in nature especially during his teenage years it was at the age of 14 years that he ventured for the first time into the jungle, Just to be closer to nature and consequently fell in love with the beauty of the enormous amounts of different Creatures, Trees and Plants therein.

In the Hutan (forest), is filled with enormous trees long convoluted roots are awe inspiring and unforgettable. Amazed by the beauty of nature and all the inhabitants of this from the creation of the Source of all that is.
This is what inspired him to start sketching and drawing, there was one instance where he used charcoal on the white inside wall of his Fathers house where he sketched the panoramic scenery in his village. the scenery of the Sambas river with a bridge and boathouses at either side of the river. Well that resulted in a scolding from his Father and was ordered to to clean the wall to it original state. That was the last drawing he made until he arrived in Europe. In 1979 he stepped on European soil for the first time. Life is ofcourse very much different from the land where he came from.

In 1981 he started sketching and drawing again, enjoying sketching portraits of subjects and was soon recieving  positive reaction from the people involved.

In 1982 he started putting his attention to Oil Paintings , He decided to Learn more by travelling to and visiting Art Galleries and Museums throughout the Netherlands, France, Germany and Spain, particulary studying and looking closely at the different techniks of the many different Masters.

With just the knowledge of his visiting and studying all the different styles and technics around europe. He decide to start his career by using oil with canvas, and particularly painting sceneries from his younger imagination and experience from indonesia. It wasn’t very long before his paintings were being displayed in different galleries in Amsterdam etc, entering competions in Monaco and Belgium.

It soon became clear that his work was creating a lot of positive interest and attention from the public, which gave him the inspiration to do more.
In 1983 he wanted to deepen his skills and find his very own technic and style and started to experiment with Cubism, Surrealism, Realism, Abstract etc.

There was One Painting he was working on that took him 2 days and 2 nights without sleep because he was so inspired by it. After completing his work after 48 hours none stop and very tired found that he still could not sleep.
It was during November early afternoon there was a lot of snow and very cold, so just wearing a track suit he decided to go jogging to and into the forest still feeling tired and thinking about only wanting to sleep.
About halfway through he arrived at a small wooden bridge over a brooke and was just standing there contemplating jumping in to the water to cool off, at that point 2 elderly people walked by telling him not to jump into the water as it was ice cold, it was at that point that He took the plunge and to the amazement and shock of the couple they walked away.
After sitting in the water for around 4 minutes he gets out and started to jog back home, and as he was passing the couple he met earlier they shouted to him saying hey, you are still alive, at that point it made Lourents laugh at their thoughts of him wanting to perhaps kill himself in the shallow water.
After arriving home and a nice warm shower he fell emmediately to sleep on his sofa.

In 1991 after lots of exhibitions and paintings under his belt with very positive reaction from his audiences.
he decided that there was something missing from his work and decided to go to AKI (art achedemie in Enschede) to study the next 5 years deepening his knowledge of sculpture and ceramics and design.

In 1996 he was awarded a diploma for Art.

References

In Borneo there are;

15000 species of flowering plants with 3000 species of trees …

All Paintings are Original works  of Lourents Oybur.

http://lourentsoybur.com/

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