Education
Sparnaay was educated to become a sports teacher and became a selftaught painter amateur photographer from about 1980.
Sparnaay was educated to become a sports teacher and became a selftaught painter amateur photographer from about 1980.
In 1959 the family moved to Rotterdam. Before becoming an established artist Sparnaay made postcards to earn money. Tjalf Sparnaay has previously lived in the province of Drenthe but currently lives and works in Hilversum, The Netherlands.
He calls himself as well artist as businessman.
I hope my paintings will allow the viewer to re-experience reality, to re-discover the essence of the thing that has become so ordinary from its deoxyribonucleic acid to the level of universal structure, in all its beauty. I call it the beauty of the contemporary commonplace.
The style of Spanraay is called "Megarealism" and can be considered as belonging to the Hyperrealism. Sparnaay exhibits his work in the Netherlands, the United States, and in England.
His paintings have sold for over $55,000.
His original works are exhibited and sold by art dealers in three countries: Bernarducci Meisel Gallery in New York, PlusOne Gallery in London, and at Mark Peet Visser Gallery in the Netherlands. Sparnaay exhibited in various art galleries, such as the mentioned Bernarducci Meisel Gallery, New York (from 2013), Oklahoma Harris s of Art, New York, from 2002 until 2012, Plus One Gallery, London (from 2006 until 2014), Smelik and Stokking Gallery, The Hague (1994). In 2015, a solo-exhibition with 50 works, painted between 1998 and 2014 took place in Museum de Fundatie in Zwolle.
