Women United ART PRIZE 2023
Painting & Drawing Category
finalist

ARTIST BIO

Ellen Holleman is a Dutch multidisciplinary artist and spatial designer. What drives her is curiosity about how people live and move about and how this is affected by the urban environment.
With an eye for quotidian, urban scenes Holleman aims to create works that capture the beauty of the human experience.
After graduating from Art School, Holleman worked as a muralist in Cancún’s Mexico Mágico theme park where she fell in love with painting and the transformative power of colours. After the park’s closure, she returned to the Netherlands and during the following 25+ years, she worked mainly as a spatial designer on urban planning projects. Besides her work as an urban design professional, she completed several applied art projects, worked as a cultural producer and initiated multiple grass roots urban projects.
In 2020, Holleman decided to restart a professional painting practice, shifting her career towards the arts. Since 2021, she has been working in a studio in Zaltbommel, where she participated in a group show in the St. Maartens basilica and had her first solo exhibition. In 2022, Holleman's works were featured in a number of exhibitions, including an augmented reality pavilion with ArtInside Gallery and an online solo exhibition. Her works were also published in issue #5 of The Huts Magazine and were featured in Cista Art Gallery’s ‘Life as a Poem’ group exhibition. In September of that year, Holleman had her second solo exhibition in Zaltbommel and participated in the 5th edition of the International Artes Exhibition in Turin, Italy, where she was awarded third prize in the figurative paintings section. In 2023 her artworks were published in the Artist Unveil Section curated by Marina Granger, Arts to Hearts Magazine #2 and she exhibited at Kunstschouw 2023.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Painting, to me, is like magic. The ability to visualize and recreate scenes using only shades and colours never ceases to amaze me. I see the world through a ‘paint filter’, always wondering how to translate the world I see around me onto canvas.
Using traditional oil painting techniques I build my images with many layers of transparent colours to create the illusion of depth and a rich and intense sensation of colour. By combining those techniques with my contemporary perspective and a more interpretive colour palette, I create visual narratives that delve into deeper themes like loneliness, migration and inequality. They reflect my views on the mutual influence of urban spaces on people and vice versa, showing how humans relate to the spaces that surround them, or, how impossible it can be to relate to those spaces at all.
The subjects I choose are usually scenes from ordinary, daily life. Just like the Dutch painters of the 17th century, I like to observe people in the places where they live their lives. With an eye for quotidian, urban scenes, I am always collecting images from the places I visit. With my full attention, I recreate those scenes into artworks that spark a quiet energy or emotion that we can all relate to. Wanting to capture just that one person at that one place in that one specific moment in time.

In 2023, I started to explore the use of circular materials in my art practice, integrating reused or circular materials. Currently, I’m working on small panels crafted from reclaimed oakwood. This traditional approach not only adds an element of excitement to my work but also aligns with my commitment to sustainability. I also enjoy experimenting and using contemporary collage techniques and photography, as part of my creative process.

Zaltbommel / Netherlands