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SMITH is pleased to announce the opening of ‘Ceremony’, Marsi van de Heuvel’s second solo exhibition in the gallery.
Marsi van de Heuvel (b. 1987) grew up in her mother’s art classroom with unlimited access to materials and surrounded by books on master painters. She has spent countless hours observing, exploring and practicing. After trying her hand in film photography and finding the practice creatively restrictive; her innate inquisitiveness led her to study further. She went on to study fine art at The Ruth Prowse School of Art and was drawn to the constantly expanding boundaries of art, and its invitation to examine life. She graduated in 2010 with a painting major.
Despite most of her current work being executed with fineliner pen, van de Heuvel still sees herself as a painter. She approaches the color and layers in her works as if she is working with oil paint; this gives the ‘drawings’ a radiant quality. The subjects of mountains, volcanoes, seascapes, and outer space portrayed in her work have illustrated how van de Heuvel has always contemplated perspectives of who we are and where we are.
Van de Heuvel is interested in art as therapy, for the artist and the viewer. Her most recent work of abstract drawings and drawings of flowers explore our inner, intimate landscape and the beauty and warmth of human connection. She describes the process behind this new body of work as being similar to the performance of ballet that is graceful and effortless but the practice of which is in fact very rigid, repetitive and restrictive. Making lightness and finding internal space within restraints, results in harmony. This is what she attempts with layers of one directional mark making; to create openness and beauty within the struggle.
Regarding the subject of ‘Ceremony’, van de Heuvel explains, “our world is full of challenge, chaos and pain; the only thing that makes sense to me in this sometimes trying existence is compassion - those quiet, vibrant moments of connection. Flowers are consolations, they celebrate the ceremonies of life and offer comfort when confronting death. To be compassionate is to be like a flower - open, vulnerable and radiant.”