FLIMSILY HELD TOGETHER BY BIRDSONG

We are delighted to announce our new collaboration with visual artist Keetje Mans. Following her impressive exhibition at the Bonnefantenmuseum earlier this year, she has created a new series of paintings.

The paintings by Keetje Mans (1979) invite you into a world that seems familiar, yet at the same time holds something mysterious and elusive. Interiors, plants, animals, furniture and everyday objects take on a life of their own in her work. What appears recognisable and homely at first glance can, upon closer inspection, transform into something strange, dreamlike or even slightly ominous.

Mans paints intuitively and directly onto the canvas, without any preliminary sketches. This creates an image in which reality and fantasy are in constant dialogue with one another. Her paintings sometimes feel like a theatre set or a memory in which it is no longer entirely clear what actually happened and what is a figment of the imagination.

Memories of her childhood and extensive travels to places such as Curaçao and Costa Rica play an important role. Tropical nature, folk art and exotic imagery blend with Dutch landscapes and domestic spaces. This gives rise to paintings in which a sense of security and unease, beauty and alienation, memory and fantasy coexist.