Suze van Leeuwen

Painting has always been my favourite pastime and as years went on I was able to devote more  and more time to my hobby. It is not merely a hobby though. In the eighties I became a qualified art master and I taught drawing in community centers.

After that I went to Tanzania and, as you will understand, because of my work there painting was not my first priority. But…..  blood is thicker than water and since that time I have taken lessons from an artist for six years.

Mainly I paint with acryl on canvas. Although I usually start a new work with a concrete image in mind, I gradually allow my imagination to take over and transform that concrete image into an abstract. So my paintings are abstracts derived from images which impressed me during my many journeys. An example of this is my trip to Petra in Jordan, where the temple, the theatre, the columns and the hidden rooms and chambers inspired me for my latest works.

Although one picture is somewhat more figurative than the other, they are never representations of reality. I mock at the laws of perspective, yet there is a certain depth in my pictures and sometimes it seems as if parts of décor, used in films or plays, have been put down at random. When I make a new painting it is a sort of exploratory expedition, sometimes difficult but usually fantastic. My pictures are impressions of (old) cities and everything that can be found there, although at the moment I paint more organic forms.

However, this is done in the same way as with the former works: in this way paws, beaks and wings are gradually leading their own lives and form new images themselves.

I hope that the photographs and the pictures will corroborate this introduction to my work.

Exhibitions:

1997 Library Mijnsheerenland

2003 Albert Schweitzer Hospital Dordrecht

2004 Cultural Centre"De Drie Lelies" Puttershoek

2005 City Hall  "Gemeente Binnenmaas"

26 th of February until 23 th of April 2005

Galerie "De Verbeelding"Oud-Beijerland

2005 Oktober-November

Nursing Home "Meerweide" Rotterdam

2005 November-December

Nursing home "De 2 Bruggen"Rotterdam