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Geheime vrienden
Artist Hannah van Bart (1963)
Title Geheime vrienden
Year 2001
Material Acrylic on linen
About the work There is something strange about the human figure in this painting. The person’s right arm seems to have given way to black arrows and lines. And on the left arm and dress of this person (a child, perhaps?) are small, anonymous people and lines reminiscent of buildings and stairs. Moreover, the left eye looks like a kind of camera lens. This makes the human figure look more like a schematic from a science book, or a deity or perhaps a cyborg:[half human, half machine. What does it remind you of?
About the artist Van Bart paints ominous landscapes, dream worlds and indeterminate spaces. Animals, people or fictional characters often populate these places. These figures emerge gradually; Van Bart builds up her paintings layer by layer. The result is usually alienating and a little uncomfortable, while at the same time shimmering with emotions and memories. Van Bart studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie (until 1988) and was an artist-in-residence at the Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunsten, both in Amsterdam, where she still lives. She won several awards for her work, including the Royal Grant (predecessor of the Royal Prize) for Painting and the Jeanne Oosting Prize.
In the collection Acquired in 2017. Twenty-one years earlier, in 1996, Van Bart had a solo exhibition at De Nederlandsche Bank. Three of her works were acquired that year: two drawings and a painting. Three more paintings by Van Bart were acquired in the subsequent period. This is in line with De Nederlandsche Bank’s objective of following artists in their development.
