The arduous drawing process of Renie Spoelstra always begins with a journey. For close to a decade, she has travelled to coasts, lakes and beaches throughout North America and Europe. Recently she visited the volcanic islands of La Palma and Iceland, looking for landscapes that evoke overwhelming existential feelings. Once she has found these locations, she films the scenes, and by using the stills from the footage, she is able to move on to the next phase of conveying a personal representation of a geographic location. Her work is never about the locations she depicts – no matter how beautiful they are. They are always about triggering emotions and associations that sharpen our senses.

Renie Spoelstra uses film footage as a starting point for her charcoal drawings. The suede like and velvety texture is achieved by the many layers of charcoal, which are skillfully positioned on top of each other to re-create an almost cinematographic scene. The balance between darkness and soft beams of light is rendered through the many shades of black and grey, creating a notion that something may be lurking below the surface.

Renie Spoelstra looks for an atmosphere, and it is this atmosphere that she tries to re-create in her drawings. The dark hues, empty landscapes and sheer size of the works evoke an existential, melancholic sentiment, and allows for the viewer to lose oneself in each piece. Although these works are reproductions of real places, and are not imagined sceneries, the soulful nature of the drawings, and dark depths, reveal a personal interpretation of the artist’s emotion.

Themes of intensity, secrecy and mystery are reoccurring in Spoelstra’s works. There is an alluring and mythical feel of a place. The series ‘Stretching Universe’ refers to the scientific fact that our universe is expanding, while here on earth it feels as though it is shrinking with the rise of xenophobia, narrow-mindedness and the continuous threats of climate change. Fleeing, or escaping to nature is not as easy as it may seem.

Renie Spoelstra studied at St. Joost, Breda and at the Academie Minerva, Groningen. She has exhibited in the Netherlands and abroad, notably at institutions like the Albertina, Vienna; Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam, and Stedelijk Museum Schiedam. Her work is included in renowned collections such as the Centre Pompidou, Paris; MACBA Barcelona; Stedelijk Museum Schiedam; Centraal Museum, Utrecht; Cobra Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Amstelveen; Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar; the Guerlain Fondation, Paris, and many other (private) collections.

Born 1997 in Terneuzen, The Netherlands
Lives and works in Rotterdam, NL

Sander Coers is a Rotterdam-based artist working with photography. Recreating and rearranging memories, he reflects on his own stories as well as those of his friends and peers, often other young men. Through a tender gaze, he seeks to visualise and establish new perceptions of masculinity within melancholic, romantic and dreamlike worlds, comprising elements from nostalgic echoes of his youth.

Hadassah Emmerich was born in 1974, in the Netherlands
She lives and works in Brussels, Belgium

Hadassah Emmerich explores recurring themes like the body and identity, the sensory and the sensual, the commodification of the erotic and the exotic. The sensuality of her painting resides not only on the surface of the erotic image, but also in her refined use of colour and technical execution. Since 2016, Emmerich has worked with a new painting technique, using stencils cut from vinyl flooring, which she covers with ink and then impresses onto canvas, paper or a wall. Referring to the visual language of advertising and Pop art, she creates images that both aestheticise and problematize the female body. She depicts the paradox of simultaneous attraction and repulsion, intimacy and cool detachment, seduction and critique. In this way, Emmerich succeeds in making the act of looking truly provocative.

Hadassah Emmerich studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Maastricht, HISK Flanders and Goldsmiths College, London. She had exhibitions at Bonnefanten, Maastricht, NL; Kunsthal Kade, Amersfoort, NL; The Royal Palace, Amsterdam, NL; CENTRALE for contemporary art, Brussels, BE; ISA Art Gallery, Jakarta, ID; De Garage, Mechelen BE; KANAL, Brussels, BE; Museum Arnhem, NL; GEM, The Hague, NL; Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin, DE; SCHUNCK, Heerlen, NL. Her work is represented in the collections of a.o. Museum Voorlinden, Wassenaar; Federal Government, Brussels; Rijksmuseum Amsterdam; Bonnefanten, Maastricht; Flemish Parliament, Brussels; Kunstmuseum Den Haag; Museum Arnhem, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Hague.