About

The paintings of Johnny Buivenga (1992) look at what sits beneath the social surface: the construction of identity, the internalised critic, the complexity of intimate relationships, and the friction between human nature and the society we live in. Performance pressure, social media, a demanding beauty ideal — an unnatural world the body is forced to relate to.

Not an explanation, but a stillness. The work seeks recognition while voicing critique of a system that isn't good for us. An ongoing inquiry, somewhere between beautifully realistic passages and more expressive or surreal accents. Johnny often serves as his own model: the personal and the universal run through one another.

Predominantly self-taught, but never casual. Johnny approaches painting with the discipline of a researcher: daily studio hours, slow-built layers of oil on linen, formats sized to make the canvas physical. His first commissioned portrait followed in October 2025. In 2026 he opens his first solo — Personal trainer.

Johnny grew up in a household of artists. Drawing and making were always there, but stayed secondary to another fascination: why people do what they do. That question took him to Radboud University, where he completed his Bachelor and Master in behaviour change cum laude, and on into nearly a decade of applied research and teaching around behaviour and group dynamics.

In 2023 he consciously chose painting; in October 2025 he left his job to commit fully to the studio. The psychology didn't disappear — it became material. What he once studied in conversations and data he now investigates in pigment: the inner theatre, the masks, the role a person plays to belong.