The new series of paintings by Annemieke Alberts centers the landscape, specifically the created landscape, an ongoing source of fascination born of her regular cycling outings. In addition to the meditative beauty, her paintings have a specific perspective that gives insight into how the Dutch function within nature, how they experience and influence it, how they attempt to create small oases of their green spaces. Alberts sees our landscape as as a result of the desire for structure and organisation. In direct and ongoing contradiction, there is also the romantic desire for real nature, something far more immense, unpredictable and enigmatic, landscapes as might have painted by Caspar David Friendrich. The parallel of control and the unpredictable was for Alberts the discovery that frames this series of landscapes.
Albert chose subjects within her personal frame of reference and experience, capturing the events in a reflective manner. Whereas Alberts previously painted inside and outside spaces, she is now more drawn to the boundlessness of space inherent to landscapes. The brushstrokes have become looser, more free, as can been seen in The Announcement, where the full scope of the scene looms into view. Alberts leaves more to the imagination, with elements left intriguingly unfilled.
For historical perspective, the work of Jacob van Ruisdael influenced how painted landscapes are interpreted. In contrast to painters from that time, Alberts’ work is far less about the immediate and pressing recognisability of a given place. Alberts chooses to manipulate reality, overlapping different observations and using atypical elements. Ultimately her work reverts to the process of painting itself, and the subject is far less material.
Annemieke Alberts (Krommenie, 1963)
Annemieke Alberts pursued a teacher training in drawing in Amsterdam. Her participation in the 2011 Summer Exhibition in the GEM The Hague, during which she was awarded the jury prize, marked her breakthrough and reach to a larger public. The following year she received a solo exhibition at Pulchri Studio. In the same year, she also took part in the talent show De Nieuwe Rembrandt and was one of the participants in an exhibition at the Victory Gallery in Portland (Oregon, USA). Roger Katwijk first showed Alberts ’painted open spaces in his gallery that year; spaces in an urban environment enclosed by office buildings, reflected in the windows of shops and a single ice cream parlor. The presentation was so successful that Roger Katwijk subsequently showed her work at various art fairs. Alberts continued her success with several solo exhibitions in the following years. In 2015, she was featured in a group exhibition in the Mondriaanhuis in Amersfoort as well as in the art manifestation Symposion in Gorinchem. Alberts recently showed her work at the Salon ’18, Rietveld Pavilion Amersfoort. Alberts' work is included in various corporate collections such as the VU medical center, Erasmus Medical Center, DELA, and Triodos Bank.