Sonja Hooglander
Beautiful Locals

Sonja Hooglander is a Dutch artist who graduated at the art academy, and now she has her own studio in Veenhuizen where she gives individual lessons in drawing, painting and graphics. Her main disciplines are Painting, Photography and Graphics, languages that she uses to show the beauty, purity and timelessness of the female nude. At the moment, she’s working with her own exclusive model to show the emotions of the body language with a limited color palette. With these paintings, she has exhibited in Rome (Italy), Hamburg (Germany) and Amsterdam (The Netherlands). Sonja loves to work with the expression of the human body, a subject study that is timeless, speechless and graceful with a lot of dynamic.

During her time at ´ace, Sonja explored the emotions, dynamics and relations between the local people in public space by interacting with the (working) local people while asking herself: what is the influence of the culture and history of the city Buenos Aires? Through this premise, Sonja explored the city and observed the local people, making al lot of sketches and exploring different dynamics and interactions with local people. With a lot of sketches made on streets, she then approached the studio to work in a combination of paintings and printmaking arts, creating a series that’s a typical reflection of the daily life in Buenos Aires and the local people. Maybe a little bit abstract and sometimes more realistic, Sonja worked with colors and materials in original style-combinations to find new ways of translating her ideas and improve herself.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My art deals with subjects and themes that often reflect my emotions. It is a representation of my state of mind, of my feeling which nowadays plays a leading role in my work. As a result, the imagination is autobiographical and I am vulnerable. My disciplines are printmaking techniques, painting, drawing and photography. My latest works are about the last phase of life. About the transience, fragility and fragility of life and the transition to the infinite, death. The last sigh, the letting go and the freedom that follows. A moment of resignation and stillness, a thing of the past… How does this translate to my emotions? With this series I “travel” with the deceased, how close can you stand? Can I capture these emotions in an image? Structure versus letting go, perfection vs ignorance, robust vs fragile, mortal vs timeless…