Nature Calls

We present a group-exhibition of totally different artists: young female artists Florentijn de Boer, Joana Schneider, Sebiha Demir and Sophie Steengracht and renowned artists Stefan Gross, Eka Acosta, Jan Koen Lomans and Tomáš Libertiny. Despite the diversity in choice of materials and technology, they have a common urgent message: their call for attention to the loss of our natural habitat and the exhaustion of our planet.

Young artists in particular are very aware of this threat and feel personally duped by the devastating influence of humans on nature and their living environment and the consequences this has for their own future.

Such as Sophie Steengracht, who gives nature a leading role in her paintings like no other. Partly through her encounters with indigenous peoples during her travels through the rain forests in Peru, she has studied mythology, magical realism, as well as the transformation and intertwining of people and nature. Her drawings, paintings and sculptures show mythical creatures, flora, fauna, the earth and the sky.

Florentijn de Boer grew up in the countryside and paints entirely on intuition, but almost unconsciously uses the capricious forms from nature as the starting point for her paintings. She hangs above the earth as if she were Google Maps herself, zooms in and paints intuitive details that evoke associations with river landscapes and mountain landscapes, which are captured from above in an exciting perspective. Florentijn works with natural oil-sticks  which she applies directly to the rough eco-friendly linen with her hands.

Joana Schneider is, just like Florentijn de Boer, a young, recently graduated female artist. Joana Schneider feels extremely involved with the underwater world, and she shapes this through the reuse of abandoned fishing strings and fishing nets, which would otherwise entrap many marine animals. She builds up her large-scale and dramatic-looking art by using textile techniques that are deeply rooted in the field of fishermen and netmakers. She translates this through contemporary textile techniques into face shapes with a powerful symbolism.

According to Stefan Gross, the world is an extremely serious place nowadays. In his work he depicts, in a colorful way, the decline of a society based on growth. He approaches this problem in his own scientific way. As a replacement for real nature, he developed his own material that he now mainly uses for his work: "oil plastic". This is the result of dyeing recycled industrial plastic with traditional oil paints. Here he builds up his beautiful three-dimensional flower still lifes.