ABOUT

The paintings of Mirjam Vreeswijk (b. Gorinchem, the Netherlands, 1997) contain a characteristic field of tension. They are beautiful and repulsive, dark and cheerful, grand and decorative at the same time. Intangible structures of natural phenomena such as waterfalls, lakes, lava flows and explosions are made tangible and ornamental as they take the form of roses or are held together by a bow. By doing so, she creates an atmosphere that is melancholic, uncanny and eerie and yet wondrous and alluring.

Her way of working allows images and meanings to emerge gradually. Different realities intertwine, giving the work a surreal quality and inviting multiple interpretations. The paintings evoke the sensation of a fever dream in which images merge and transform. Vreeswijk plays with what is real or illusion, what has depth or remains flat. Her work reveals and conceals at the same time, allowing the recognizable and the strange, the manageable and the improbable to constantly alternate.