Helen Verhoeven. Part Pretty

With her monumental, epic paintings — including the series ‘Event’(2008), ‘Half After’ (2009) and the more recent ‘The Thingly Character’ (2010) — Verhoeven’s work appears to examine the collective memory of ceremonial gatherings, behind which a landscape of nightmares and ghostly phenomena is concealed. She paints a burlesque world, reminiscent of the Weimar period, without social norms and in which taboos are explored. Verhoeven depicts the suppressed emotions and tensions which the group tries to camouflage and at unexpected moments, pulls down the curtain to engage the viewer in scenes of collective disarray and arousal. She then shows scenes in which themes such as power and impotence, guilt and innocence, submission and dominance all play a role. In Verhoeven’s psychologically charged world, the boundary between affluence, luxury and entertainment on the one hand, and sordidness and emptiness on the other, is blurred completely.

Verhoeven makes a conscious choice to allude to historical art by making references to artists such as Hieronymus Bosch, Goya and De Chirico in her work. In addition, she appropriates source material from family archives, newspapers, paparazzi photographs and scenes from films. Using this mix, she creates complex paintings in which different imageries, epochs and psychological conditions clash. Verhoeven’s style of painting is even conductive to the feeling of discomfort conjured up by her work. The rough brushstroke, touching on the naive, seems to suggest that social behaviour is inextricably linked to primitive, individual motives. Her palette of colours consists partly of black, white and greyish tints which accentuate a muted mood, whilst at the same time creating a certain distance with the viewer. Verhoeven’s epic scenes in black & white bear a resemblance to the silent films of the 1920s, but also to the grisaille underpaintings of the old masters.

Helen Verhoeven
Part Pretty