Although Marjolein van Haasteren can be called a natural talent, she received her education at The Royal Academy of Arts The Hague. Van Haasteren has been living and working in Leiden and within her work portrays an oeuvre of surrealistic landscapes. The images she depicts seem fluid and transparent, giving an appealing and spacious impression. The images seen within her paintings seem to appear and disappear in the blink of an eye. As if all aspects of her artwork is seen from the corner of your eye.
Clear lines and contours loom up from a turbulent background. Whoever sees the work of Marjolein van Haasteren steps into another world. A fairy-tale world, so unique and capricious that the laws of everyday life do not seem to apply.
Her surreal works are preceded by a period of research. Plant and leaf forms are carefully studied, and find a way onto the canvas. In her paintings organic order, movement and proliferation, displacement and tranquility are shown. Poignant lyrical works, where lush growth and harmonious stillness go hand in hand.
Van Haasteren paints her landscapes with swirling brushstrokes and a muted use of color. The large ink lines she once had to set up during her calligraphy class at art school eventually got under her skin. The method of line drawing - by turning your brush the line becomes thinner or thicker - is a technique she still uses today. Handcut templates are applied over the line structure. Those bold painted visual elements can be seen as the artificiality that organic forms can have, or as the way we edit our natural environment. Nature as a mirror that amazes and captivates.
Soft, Slowly & LOUD