Bart Ramakers was born in Belgium in 1963, near Maaseik, the birthplace of the Van Eyck brothers. Under the influence of his father, an art lover, he absorbs everything he can find in the village library on painting, history, typography and printing. At twelve, he began to write and illustrate stories before enrolling in art school. Later, he learned graphic tricks at the Maasmechelen academy, including the technique of engraving. At the same time, he discovers with the Symphonie Fantastique, Faust, Boris Godounov, Othello, The Rite of Spring and Lady McBeth… a sound and narrative landscape that blends perfectly with his drawings. It is in all these works of art that the source of the work of Bart Ramakers is to be found, with as main ingredients the narrative and the pictorial of Baroque and Romantic music and painting. In the 1970s, he took a history course at the University of Louvain. His own artistic production then consisted only of black and white drawings and comic strips. His first exhibition of drawings in Leuven was such a success that all the works were sold. Under the influence of Rubens or Manara, the female nude was already at that time an important element in his work. In twenty years and two marriages, Bart Ramakers has made a career in communication and marketing. Alongside, he nurtured his artistic themes, film after opera, comic strip after novel, journey after journey, until in 2009 he began his own artistic career. At the heart of Bart Ramakers' work are classic myths, fables and legends, colored in a contemporary perspective, imbued with heartbreaking human feelings, passion and betrayal, love and hate, envy and jealousy... At Bart, human/ women are overthrown, by a sarcastic irony. The Christian morality of suffering and guilt is transformed into a story of joy and generosity, where references to the history of art abound.
