LANDSCAPES OF THE MIND
Engelina Zandstra is a Dutch artist and lives in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
For many years she has followed courses in Amsterdam in the field of painting, etchings, screen prints and modeling. In recent years she has concentrated herself on painting.
Her art images are created in her head and in her mind. They are an exploration of her inner spirit. The impressions that were stored in her head during her life are the source of the imagination, more than the images and influences from outside. Sometimes she finds inspiration in simple objective chance, in the form of images that happen to come her way.
An idea that she has is usually drawn directly on the canvas, without prior study. The starting point are lines and color areas, which serve as initial development.
Each painting is like a link in her creative development, a pioneering process of her personal style. This intuitive approach makes that the type of work that is created can be very different.
Color, composition, figuration and abstraction are not constant elements in her work, but part of her spiritual exploration.
Her fascination with images that are not possible or not correct representations of reality, cuts across the idiom of the art of Surrealism.
In the Surrealism shapes and colors can have different meanings.
Her artistic intuition, which begins with images of the mind, makes use of ideas, shapes and colors and combines these elements into a painting with its own 'handwriting'.
The style of her paintings can best be described as lyrical-abstract. Sometimes the beginning is abstract, and then at some point human figures come in the picture. As if the human presence is necessary for further inspiration. The human images she uses to define human relationships.
Usually she works in several thin layers over each other. Each layer provides inspiration for the next, with new ideas. The different layers and colors gives the acrylic paint depth and character. Color is very important to her: the alchemy of color. It is her view of the atmosphere of a painting.
She calls her paintings "Landscapes of the Mind", because they are the reproductions of the images stored in her imagination.
As regards the meaning of a work: her paintings are like music, there are no words needed for its interpretation.
Each painting tells its own story, and those who look at it may experience it in his own way, can give his own meaning to it.
In her pictures she tries to open a window on a segment of reality, in which symbols, places, feelings and impressions are summarized. The complex reality, a combination of location, event and time, again constructed using her imagery.
Usually I work fast, alla fine and with thin paint: a first version of the painting on the canvas in one time.
But then there are coming many layers in the same way on top of it.
Each new layer gives inspiration for the next one, with new ideas to work out.
The different layers and colors of each layer give the acrylic paint also depth.
The materials I am using are acrylic paint on canvas, because they are for me the most suitable for my way of working.
Website : www.engelinazandstra.nl