Vonn Ströpp

b. 1962

Vonn Ströpp (known to have 123 pseudonyms) was born in Stanwell, Surrey, and endured a dismal childhood. His English mother and alcoholic Irish father were ill-equipped financially and emotionally to create a nurturing environment for him and his four siblings. When he was eleven years old Vonn Ströpp had a series of ecstatic visionary experiences. After leaving school at the age of sixteen without any qualifications, he worked in a number of menial jobs and began to paint obsessively. Vonn Ströpp taught himself to draw without art books or reference materials and by the time he was in his early twenties he had achieved a remarkable level of technical skill, producing work reminiscent of some of the Old Masters. He recalls ‘doodling’ from an early age, but he was never encouraged to draw. Whilst the process of painting is a painful one for him ­ being both emotionally demanding and physically draining ­ Vonn Ströpp feels compelled to paint as a means of imposing order on the chaos of the visionary experience. Extreme attention to detail is a characteristic of his work: elaborate, intertwining still lifes are executed using limited materials.