Herman de Vries, born 1931 in Alkmaar, is a Dutch visual artist who has been living in Eschenau in the Steigerwald region (Franconia, Germany) since 1970. Having started out as an Art Informel painter in the 1950s, his interests shifted in the ensuing years, and in the 1970s, he became focused on found objects from nature and their artistic-philosophical qualities and implications. He has made paintings, collages, texts, sculptures, installations, a.o., and has dealt with plants, earth, and other parts of nature from botanical, medical, historical, as well as psychedelic viewpoints.
"At the summer party on the occasion of my soon-to-be 80th birthday, many friends came. as it said on the invitation: 'the eschenau chaos band will play.' while the party was going on, people asked me when that band would be playing, and i replied: 'now! you are that band', and i randomly handed out all of these instruments. hartmut geerken was clued in and had brought some as well – sun ra's sun harp among others. i started with a moroccan hand drum, bendir, and off it went. unpractised." (herman de vries)