Marcelle Hanselaar RE
Marcelle’s world is the one that lurks just below the surface, inhabited by creatures and people of myth, disturbed and twisted, raw and beautiful, a world instantly recognisable yet profoundly different; her creatures, predominantly female, don’t just wish violence upon their men, or themselves, they act it out, whether it’s banging a nail through the head of the one that once loved them or wrapping themselves in barbed wire. Her world may not be happy and may sometimes seem to take place beyond the abyss, but like our world, it can be extremely funny & it will be a rare soul who enters this show and doesn’t laugh, between their tears. Each etching offers a glimpse of a story, creatures acting out an eternal dance as they try and fail to understand each other caught in claustrophobic settings, pictured in a dark palette, reminiscent of the German Expressionists or female surrealists.
Winner of the Presse Papier prize for best foreign printmaker in the Biennale d’Estampe Contemporaine de Trois-Rivières, Canada in 2004, her work has since been included in several Printmaking Biennales in Europe and the UK. She also has exhibited in the RA Summer Show for several years and her work can be found in many collections, including the British Museum.
Currently, her work is on tour in regional galleries in the UK in a print show “Uncanny Tales” with Paula Rego, Ana Maria Pachebo and Oona Grimes.