About
Aline Thomassen is a contemporary artist, living and working between The Netherlands and Morocco. Her work is
renown for her meters-large paintings and drawings in watercolor with lyrical and ferocious depictions of nude
women. Women’s bodies and animal, plant- or interior organ motifs flow together to create an almost cosmic
link with a blend of mysterious visual elements, that may or may not be recognizable.
Inspired by various cultural and psychological realities displayed in society, we can regard the female nudes
as the expression of the psychological landscape, representing strong and unspeakable feelings.
The penetrating and uneasy images that Thomassen presents refuse to reveal themselves completely.
She continuously upsets our patterns of expectation and makes us confront the images of women that we have formed
from the media and art history. Her militant women live their own lives, averse to our priori assumptions.
Bio
Aline Thomassen’s work is exhibited and collected by various museums including The Bonnefantenmuseum in the
Netherlands, with a solo-exhibition Cherchez la Femme in 2015, the GEM museum of contemporary art with the
solo-exhibition The Ideal Muslim Woman, and Kunstmuseum The Hague, Stedelijk Museum Het Domein, Sittard,
Teylers Museum, Haarlem, Museum Van Bommel van Dam, Venlo, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam- NOG collection, LUMC
Leiden Stadsgallerij Heerlen Schunck, Museum De Buitenplaats, Eelde and Espace Art and Collection Societé Générale
in Casablanca, Morocco.
Other public collections include Rabo Art Collection, Collection Nederlandsche Bank. Part of the Dutch
Ministry of Foreign Affairs Art Collection, the work is to be seen in The Dutch Embassies in Brussels, Ankara,
Caïro, Kaapstad, Ho Chi Minh City, Rome, Lima and The European Union in Brussels. She took part in the
exhibition Respect! in Museum Dar Sidi Saïd and Palais el-Badi that was organized in Marrakech in 2005, in
which 15 artists represented The Netherlands as part of the celebration of 400 years of relations of The
Netherlands and Morocco. In 2011 she exhibited in All About Drawing, featuring 100 dutch artists working on
paper, organized by the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam. She participated in the International Drawing Biënnale at
The Tallin Art Hall 2012.
Aline Thomassen is the recipient of the Jeanne Oosting Prize 2013.
In 2022 her works were presented in the exhibition RAW at The Rembrandt House Museum: In the group show RAW,
Rembrandt’s etchings introduce the work of thirteen contemporary artists. The show revolves around works by
Melanie Bonajo, Marlene Dumas, Alix Marie, Buhlebezwe Siwani, Alex Farrar, Rineke Dijkstra, Paul Kooiker,
Shannon Finnegan, Milan Gies, Jeroen Schokkin, Verena Blok, Aline Thomassen and Natasja Kensmil.
“Aline Thomassen creeps under the skin of the women in her paintings. She looks for the human condition: existential experiences and feelings. Using watercolor paint and pure pigments, she emphasizes the inner life, what is revealed when you look beyond outward beauty. The visible organs, thoughts, wounds and scars reflect experiences such as love, loss, pain and death.” Nathalie Maciesza 2022