A serious gallery usually focuses on one art type and may showcase a couple of other types. Rolands Art focuses mainly on Pop Art. This is a movement that emerged in the US in the 50’s of the last century. In case it doesn’t ring a bell, which is not weird if you are not into art, you might recognize it by the Marilyn Monroe picture in four different colors and the old Coca Cola posters. If you go to the Museum of Modern Arts in New York you’ll find many artists of this genre, such as Roy Liechtenstein and others.
A different edge
But we wouldn’t be Rolands Art if we didn’t give this Pop Art genre our own touch. Especially since times have changed and we need to go along with the modernization of our culture. That is why we mainly showcase the work of illustrators. The artists that create art by using their computer. We also showcase the old fashioned Pop Art artists, but that is mostly on the side. Right now we focus on the future which we believe is online and on the computer. We will now tell you something about our 3 most promising artists.
Reece Butler
If you feel like you have heard this name before, you might be right. Reece was the artist that created the artwork for the Club Riot flyers. This was one of the most popular Dutch house club nights back in the early 2000s. The promoters organized events all over the country, but mainly in Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Utrecht and Breda. Getting this gig was a game-changer for Reece, because it put his name on the map. That’s actually also how we heard about him, when someone left a Club Riot flyer in our mail. We knew right then and there that we had to sign on this talent and we have been working successfully together ever since.
Semaj Simon
Semaj came to us as an intern. Or better yet, he came asking for an internship for his course at the Grafisch Lyceum in Rotterdam. Since we always like to help others where we can and we needed a hand at the time we accepted him as an intern. Soon after he started his job, which mainly consisted of getting coffee and some administrative tasks, we noticed that he often stayed rather late at work behind his computer. Worried that Semaj had nowhere to go, or that he might not have a computer at home to do his schoolwork at, one of our colleagues once took a look at his computer after he walked away from it for a while. We then discovered that he had a huge talent that he had been keeping from us. So there was nothing left to do for us but to sign him on. He still hasn’t finished his course, but he knows how to juggle his studies and his work for us like no other.
Kyler Olsen
This is one of Marks former colleagues, from when he used to work in Malta. The island on which all the online casinos are located. These online casinos hire a lot of young people, with little to no experience in their field. The same happened to Norwegian graphic designer Kyler Olsen. He was hired as a graphic designer in the casino Mark was working at. During the time they worked together, the casino was still small so the employees could do whatever they wanted during the slow hours of the day. That’s when Kyler used to create the art that convinced Mark to open his own gallery.