Close up pictures of the artist atelier showing tools and palette samples.
Material & technique
The artwork on canvas is stretched by the artist, created on traditional 100% Belgian flax linen. The paint that the artist uses is in tradition of the great masters preference of painting materials, linseed oil paint and pigments. The painting methods that the artist uses are based on the Dutch and Flemish 17th century masters and the Italian 16th century masters. The artists make use of trompe l'oeil techniques and sfumato methods. Multiple thin transparent glazes are applied in oil paint with soft transitioning brushwork. The glazes applied vary from thirty to forty glazes of oil paint. The artworks are structured with an underpainting and colour glazing methods. The built up of the painting allows for depth and complexity and soft transitions of shading and colour. The method also allows for the artist to intentionally create vibrance and luminosity. The high quality materials and the built up of multiple paint layers have a very stable effect where colours last and the vibrance continues to exist over time.
The artist has followed four years of training in traditional oil painting techniques, specialising in 17th century Dutch masters and 14th renaissance Italian masters. The artist has replicated master pieces to truly understand the techniques and methods. The artist is captivated by the impact that art has and implicates the techniques in her own work. The artist is constantly researching and trialing methods and techniques and is excited about art movements.
About In Uncertainty collection
The collection titled In Uncertainty is the new collection by the artist Marianne Hendriks. The collection has been in preparation over a period of six years, where the artists has specialised in the techniques of both the Dutch 17th Masters and Italian 14th century masters. During the studies the artist created a still lives collection titled Domesticus collection, exploring painting techniques and reflecting in times of lockdown. The collection ‘In Uncertainty’ is also a reflection on yet again uncertain times. The artist approach is to evolve and create an expanding collection, where the work will take on different influences and directions.
The art work is with the main focus on representing nature. The artist portrays plants, fruits and flowers and plays with their appearances. Marianne’s art work is has poetic intention and melancholy. The subjects have a theatrical appearance and are part of a performance that is perhaps even taking place without us as human spectators awareness. The artist is also focussed on colour and works in a traditional and non traditional manner. The colour mode that the artist uses has another worldly aspect to it. Inspired by the use of colour by Michael Angelo in the Sistine chapel in the Vatican Rome. The artist also refers to the colour mode of the cinematic colouring of old film footage by hand, reference called ‘technicolour’.
About The Unknown collection
The collection ‘All that is unknown’ is based on poetry and nature. The collection explores love and romance and the artist suggests that to be an artist, one can not avoid being a romantic. The collection is inspired by sonnets and poems and letters by artists and writers. Marianne’s work is referring to the letters of Vincent van Gogh, writing to his brother Theo, describing how he fell in love with nature and how he felt deeply connected. In one of the many letters he describes a very moving moment, where a man has found himself. V.v.Gogh who struggled with many things in his life amongst was a struggle to find a sense of belonging, acceptance, meaning and love, he found this in nature. The poem ‘Gingo Biloba’ by Goethe is another reference the artist is inspired by. The poem of Goethe describes love as a mythical thing that nature is represented as part of the love language.
At the time whilst developing the collection the artist has participated at the RCA London summer course. The course focuses on challenging ideas, and methods. Marianne explores writing poetry in her work during the course. Describing love in its many forms, the infatuation, feeling foolish, obsessively strong, admiration and interest for some one and nature. The artist describes love and romance as a great capacity in itself to have. Where romance is something to believe in for it to be able to exist. Marianne explores the complexity of love and depicts it in the form of writing and painting and nature. The poems wander through landscapes as part of the landscape, describing nature as part of love, empathy and belonging. Marianne’s writing of the poems are not chronicle and are in the landscape and separated in space and time, indicating that the meaning of her poems and love exist outside the timeline we live in.
About Domesticus collection
The Domesticus collection is a series of domestic still life scenes, created during lockdown. The paintings are in a dream-like state, with a naive and childlike appearance. There is the acceptance of the artist that the painting exists outside the realm of reality and not attempting to rival reality. There is also an element of the unresolved and unfinished, giving a sense of unease in the paintings. The artist uses the traditional techniques to her own aesthetic and has a contemporary approach with influences of today’s mass pop culture and cartoons. The artist also makes use of the technique called ‘Couleur rompue’, broken colour, this technique is to place colours next to each other and not mixing colours, allowing for extra contrast in the painting and luminosity.
Marianne refers to the themes used in the paintings of the Dutch Masters of the Golden Age. The golden age was a social and economic uncertain time, times of prosperity and having plentiful luxuries whilst at the same time an era of unrest and conflict. The artist sees parallels and indicates that events are recurring in today's world.
The paintings of Marianne are a succession of dreams, images, ideas, emotions and sensations. The dream state is something that fascinates and disturbs at the same time, usually occurring involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. The artist likes to suggest that at the same time dreams represent hope, change and excitement. Influenced by the surrealist artist Rene Magriet, who quoted , ‘Ceci n'est pas une pipe’, recognising that art by divination exists outside reality. The collection reflects on times of isolation, showing empty spaces and isolated vignettes, expressing melancholy. The paintings are left unfinished and abstracted, devering from reality. The perspective and points of views are warped and elements do not match. The fruits portrayed are falling or scattered, representing transcendence, the feeling of turning is amplified by the bright blazing sun and colours. The fruit appears to be perfectly ripe and sweet and about to go rotten. From a stage of thriving and abundance to being corrupted and rotten, implying that good and bad appear not too far apart. The blue skies represent truth, freedom, with fleeting clouds that are morphing into new forms, indicating uncertainty and a reminder of life’s impermanence. A fly appears into the artworks, unwanted, another reminder and symbol in art history of rot and wasting away. Referring to many hours alone in the atelier with a fly for company.