Hannah van Bart

Van Bart paints portraits, still lifes and landscapes with a subdued use of colour, creating penetrating, atmospheric works in which beauty and discomfort go hand in hand. Although she works figuratively, Van Bart rarely starts from an existing image. Usually the starting point is a source of light, a shimmer, a mud trail, a reflection. She then attempts to reproduce that sensation through multiple layers, layers acting as memories, some vague, others direct and sharp. This contributes to the psychological depth of the work. Although Van Bart never bases her characters on real people, there is something recognisable about them – as if they stem from a collective memory.