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The subject matter of artist
Hanne Clausen tends to go against the picturesque landscape
tradition. She says she is drawn to paint the city of Rotterdam,
which is known to the Dutch as the "ugliest city of
the Netherlands" both because of the industrial feel
of its architecture and the fact that Rotterdam is a "working-class"
city. Clausen’s palette can be moody, yet she wields
a live brush as she shows there is indeed a very poetic
side to Rotterdam. Evening is one of her favorite times
of day, and in her somewhat stark yet beautiful scenes,
the lighting lends mystery and intrigue to the otherwise
straightforward locale. In creating her simultaneously beautiful
and eerie cityscapes she uses a combination of solid paint
brush stokes and diluted paint that she applies in semitransparent
layers with a cloth, sponge or brush.
Other works include her landscapes of Norway,
or rather the idea of Norway, her birthplace. She renders
it, not the way it really is, but the way she thinks of
it when she is not there.
Clausen graduated from the Willem de Kooning
Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Rotterdam in 1996. She
works in paint, digital art, film and animation; teaches
art; and her exhibitions include the Museum Boot, Rotterdam,
June 2005. She is married to the Dutch artist Peter Bastiaanssen.
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