Biographical notes Frans Horbach was born in Boxmeer, a small provincial town in the south-eastern part of The Netherlands. His father was a country physician, his mother a primary school teacher. From an early age on Horbach showed a restless spirit for adventure and a talent for drawing. After finishing highschool, he decided to discover the world, went to the seaport of Rotterdam and got a job on a freighter bound for South America. During that year he worked on different ships, crossing the Atlantic ocean several times and visiting places in Brazil, Argentine, Uruquay; later he would also visit New York. After his return to The Netherlands, Horbach entered the University of Wageningen mayoring in tropical agricultural sciences. However, too restless for academic life, he left the university a year later and decided to emigrate to the America, where, at the age of 19, he arrived in San Francisco. In Califonia he found a way of life more congenial to his character. Alternating study with work, he found time to explore the Pacific West coast. He travelled the length of California, to Oregon, to Canada and as far north as Alaska, where on Kodiak Island he worked during the summer months in a fishing port. In the late 60-ies Horbach travelled to Mexico-City where he studied art and cultural anthropology at the Universidad de las Americas. Mexico was in many ways a revelation for him. He made extensive journeys into the interior of Mexico, where he touched upon the strange and extraordinary world of the indigeneous indian communities. This contact with native Mexican communities would have an important early influence on his orientation, perception, and understanding within the world of art. Here he discovered cultures that were deeply rooted in ancient tradition and strangely connected to a mythic past - cultures where dance, music and art were essentially communal expressions, fundamentally rooted in a shared vision of a common universe; they played a central role in the collective experience of the community. These early encounters in Mexico, and later in Peru, opened his eyes to a different visual order and perspective, and they would constitute an intellectual reference point in his perceptual understanding; in fact they would mark the beginning of his life as an artist. After his return to California, Horbach continued his studies in art and architecture at the University of California in Berkeley. Seeing an exhibition of Huichol indian art at the University Art museum in Berkeley, Horbach was inspired to undertake a journey to some of the native-american indian reservations in the south-western states of America. He visited the Navajo, Hopi, Puebla and Zuni tribes in Arizona and New Mexico, and continued his journey into Mexico, to the Sierra Madre mountains in the remote highlands of Nayarit, home of the Huichol Indians, his final destiny. "Here I found a culture where art still relates to the common reservoir of knowledge about their shared physical and metaphysical universe, and where art is used as a means of coding and channeling that knowledge. Here the role of the shaman as artist, as image maker, was that of mediator between the visible world of things and the invisible realm of spirit and idea." After finishing his university study and getting his degree at the College of Environmental Design of UC Berkeley in 1972, he went to Europe and journeying east, he travelled overland through Turkey, Iran, Afganisthan, Pakistan, India and Nepal, where in the Himalaya mountains he even joined a Tibetan trading caravan. During these wanderings in the East he developed a strong interest in Tibetan culture and philosophy. He returned to Europe and lived a few years in Spain. Horbach finally decided to return to his native Holland and, as he puts it, "to set up base-camp" in Amsterdam. He liked the old town environment and the somewhat bohemian atmosphere of the Jordaan neighbourhood where he found a convenient situation to live and work. However, his taste for adventure and his urge to travel had not diminished. Before long he went to Peru, to the Andes mountains where he lived for some time with a Quetchua-speaking peasant family in the remote region of Yanoaca. The indian farmers in this region are considered to be direct descendents of the Inca. Horbach found that they lived in isolated regions and under harsh physical conditions, but that despite the many obstacles and problems that mark their lives, they proudly held on to their traditional culture. These experiences in the remote Andes afforded Horbach the unique opportunity to study aspects of Inca culture, and the surviving ways of life of its descendents. When asked about the influence of these travels in his work, Horbach said: "These no doubt tenuous encounters with old cultures in an often strange and beautiful world, the reality of which remains a matter of speculation, have contributed in shaping and coloring the image of the world I live in, but also in shaping the dynamic context of my ideas and perceptions, which are imbued with a deep-rooted sense of connectedness. It is my creative domain, it is very personal, full of potential and possibilities. In the space of this world, which really is my world, the dialectic between inside and outside, has always remained at the source of my creative work. Understanding, feelings, memory, imagination and perception all must combine to arrive at meaning, at intended expression. There is realy no boundary. The work is never easy, never conclusive, and it necessarily involves discipline and earnest effort. For me, it makes the creative proces fascinating, challenging, enjoyable, necessary and inevitable" Frans Horbach lives and workes in Amsterdam. He is married to artist/illustrator Veronica Nahmias. They have two grown-up children, Ruben and Leon.