On landscape, movement, and preparing the work
Some exhibitions begin long before the doors open.
In the weeks leading up to Kunstschouw Zeeland 2025, I found myself moving constantly between studio, harbor, and landscape. Paintings leaning against walls, works wrapped carefully for transport, sketches scattered between larger pieces still drying in the studio.
Arriving in Zeeland always changes something in my rhythm. The air feels broader there. Slower, but at the same time constantly moving through wind, tide, and shifting light. Together with my husband, I brought the work to Schuur De Wilde in Scharendijke, where I would exhibit during the entire Kunstschouw period.
Nature Calling
The title Nature Calling emerged naturally while preparing the exhibition.
Not because the work literally depicts nature, but because landscape, movement, weather, and silence continuously shape the way I paint and observe. In series like Icelandic Houses, Keepers, Flow, and It’s Nature, I search for the tension between stillness and movement, vulnerability and strength, softness and rawness.
Nature, for me, is never simply a backdrop. It behaves more like a living presence that enters the work through rhythm, texture, contrast, and atmosphere.
Schuur De Wilde
Schuur De Wilde immediately changed the work again.
The openness of the barn, the rough walls, the height of the space, and the changing daylight throughout the day created a completely different dialogue between the paintings and their surroundings. Some works became quieter there. Others suddenly felt more direct, almost confronting.
I always find it fascinating how paintings shift once they leave the studio. A work that seemed intimate indoors can suddenly expand inside a large barn space. Light changes color, surfaces become more visible, layers begin to breathe differently.
Looking Ahead
What I look forward to most during Kunstschouw Zeeland is not only showing the work, but the encounters surrounding it.
Visitors arrive from many different places and backgrounds. Some wander in quietly after cycling through the landscape all day. Others stay for long conversations about symbolism, process, memory, or the strange ways people recognize fragments of themselves inside an image.
That exchange has become an essential part of exhibiting for me.
For a broader reflection on exhibiting, working, and living during Kunstschouw Zeeland, you can also read more about my Kunstschouw Zeeland artist experience.
