Born in the Netherlands in 1957, his interests in art, theater and communication led him to found an Amsterdam-based performing arts center; organize the European art collective "Hart Poetry;" and for a number of years he headed Leestemaker & Associates, an Amsterdam based consulting firm specializing in the arts. Upon moving to the US in 1990, Leestemaker, continuing a longstanding cultural tradition in his family, committed himself to painting full time, following in the footsteps of other European and Dutch artists, notably Willem de Kooning and Mondrian, for whom living and working in the US inspired a dramatic creative transition. His stylistic journey led from early influences by the CoBrA movement, through densely abstract expressionist compositions, to the Inner Landscape and Transfiguration series, inspired both by Mark Rothko and 17th and 18th Century Dutch and English landscape painters including Constable and Ruysdael. With his contemporary landscapes as a solid foundation, recent compositions, as "Voyagers" and "Map of The Wind" took the viewer into a new generation of abstract expressionism, in which landscape and abstraction increasingly merge. The newly created "Allegories", "Dreams", "Soliquoi" and "Haiku" explore even deeper layers of fluidity in his painting.The larger canvases are first treated with a -thin- cement layer mixed with raw pigment powder, then worked into with acrylic paint and finished with an oil based varnish. This fresco technique on the canvas creates a layered luminous sense of the work which seemingly changes in different shades of light. The smaller canvases making up the sets of the "Inner Landscapes" are made with the palette knife, and create a rich, layered look to the work. Landscapes have become Leestemaker's preferred subject matter as he feels that it is in these 'atmospheric landscapes' that he can both express his emotion/intuition of the abstract compositions as well as the universally understood language of landscape painting. Leestemaker sees the role of the artist as the shaman, or the Greek priest, translating the message of the gods into worldly understood action and matter. The painter does this visually. The tragic mistake of the romantic idea of the artist is that he has lost half of this message. This has cast the artist in the eternal role of the outsider, where as Leestemaker believes that the role of the artist is to fill the world with spirituality and make it whole. He does not subscribe to the recent 19th /20th century romantic notion that the artist must be a solitary, suffering individual who locks himself away in a state of despair, creating art that can only be understood by a select few. He has often found that the limitations and challenges in collaborating with a multitude of disciplines (developer, architect, designer art-consultant), become very rewarding when new solutions or ideas come out as a result of those challenges. Those solutions and challenges become part of the development and creative process reflected in his own artwork in the studio. His openness to collaboration has led to installations in locations such as Miramax Films, the Bellagio Hotel & Casino, the MGM Hotel & Casino and the International Airport in Las Vegas, The Diplomat Hotel in Hollywood, Florida, The Newman Scoring Stages at Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, The Omni Hotel in San Diego, Beverly Hills Hotel, Los Angeles, Estrella Banner Medical Center in Phoenix, AZ, Genzyme, Boston, Four Seasons Hotel, Bahamas, the Miyako Hotel and Mitsubishi in Tokyo, Japan.Leestemaker's paintings are exhibited throughout the US and internationally, increasingly becoming a part of major corporate and private collections. Two retrospective museum exhibitions were held in 2004. Boston Galerie d'Orsay hosted an exhibition with a selection of the museum works for the artist in 2005. A number of paintings were included in the 2008 Riverside of Museum exhibition "Plein Air Abstraction." The documentary "Swimming Through the Clouds" about the artist's life and work, was screened at a number of film festivals around the world and broadcast by Link TV, a culture and arts satellite network. The artist collaborated with famed composer and musician Charlie Haden and created the artwork for Haden's 2005 Grammy Award-winning CD "Land of the Sun." His collaboration with Hollywood's film industry has led to a number of film and television projects including "Spiderman," "Bringing Down the House," "Erin Brockovich," "Simone," "Shopgirl," "American Dreamz," "Spiderman III," "Fracture," and "Boston Legal." In 2006 the award winning Canadian composer Vincent Ho used four paintings of the artist as inspiration for a chamber music work in four parts, titled "Four Paintings By Leestemaker." Funded by the Canadian Arts Council this work was performed at a number of music festivals throughout China. The video artist and animator Edber Mamesao choreographed a 20 minute visual interpretation of this composition and a DVD version of this compilation is part of a new substantial hardcover book, published by Skylark Press (www.skylarkpress.com). A new book with auto-biographical stories and an overview with eighty color-plates that chronicle 20 years of painting in the U.S., titled The Intentional Artist will be released in February 2010.For more information about the artist, please visit the website at:www.LucLeestemaker.com