Menno began painting, on an impulse, in the mid-1990s. He was living in his car, not because he was in need of housing, but as a way to simplify his life.

It was a gradual transition over the years with the realization that living in his car freed him from the rat race of big-city living in Toronto. Born in Holland in 1950, his family moved to Canada when he was five years old where a seemingly normal life ensued. Menno realized his life’s purpose when he picked up a paintbrush. His old car became his private sanctuary and studio. Taking enough freelance work to cover the cost of gas, art supplies and food sustained his overwhelming need to create: untrained yet compelled to do so. Menno learned to paint by trial and error and through total immersion in an artworld of his own making. He spent his days exploring paint and color – using his fingers, brushes and tools to bring images to life. At this point, his passion to paint took priority over everything else in his life leading to his current artistic confidence.

Best known for his portraits, Menno explains that they do not depict specific individuals, but rather the emotions that he sees in ordinary people on the street.

Their exhaustion and despair are impossible to miss, he says. They are trapped in lives they unwittingly fell into, caught in a hamster wheel of drudgery. An empath of sorts, Menno strives to capture those haunting expressions on canvas and viewers are left to find their own meaning in the untitled works. He has been called a devil-painter by those who are disturbed by the excess of dark colours and characters with bared teeth. But if the canvas is dark, he says, it’s only because black paint was on sale that day.

He has said that when he is painting he feels as though his life is standing still, and that he is floating in timeless space. That is exactly where he wants to be.