Ineke Vanderwal Dorset, United Kingdom

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Ineke Van der Wal is foremost a painter. Her practise has been extensive since the early 80 place over many years . She is currently based in the Southwest of England . The work has consistently been challenging , even uncomfortable, where the aesthetics of paint can engage the viewer. Her practise comprises painting , drawing and writing and is approached from a subjective female perspective.

My practise is firmly based in oil painting, drawing both from literature, particularly the work of TS Eliot, as well abstracting personal lived in experiences. The work explores the relationship of inner /and perception of self to the body, to time and memory, and a sense of place. It further engages and has a dialogue with poetry and found words, where paintings develop frequently in series with material and gesture in a rhythmic and layered process. These subject matters have been a consistent inspiration through my lengthy working practise. The smaller physical scale of recent paintings compels the viewer to come closer and really look, whilst still suggesting the dynamics of larger work. New developments of work lead to challenging the work from a new perspective in 2020 where the proximity to the figure is perceptible whilst emerging from a jagged ambiguous abstraction and fearful point which the artist places in an interior with strength, decision and dynamism. "I paint what I cannot see or grasp in an unseen reality." To be unafraid and as consequence in the work it's painting process departs from the comfortable and known and is unafraid of failure or darkness. Trying to get a better understanding of the complexity of painting it is worked over and over again from a personal perspective until gradually a deeper understanding emerges. in 2021 I was commissioned by the BEAF Festival ' to 2B Human' , Bournemouth , UK for a project entitled the ‘The Drawing Wall Portraits of Self ‘ a 11 meters long wall of charcoal drawings , with the central drawing made specifically on site in the BAD art space. I continue to be challenged in my painting process with an always critical view and perspective. The years filled by an extensive built-up knowledge of art history, the platform of visual arts and theories, all its multitude of engagements. Not to speak of the ever-changing possibilities of forms of expression. In the recent series ‘Body as Monument’ the painting develops in many layers, paint marks touching, floating upon the underlying spaces fusing and digging deep into a renewed formation. As in memory where layers are built upon in a lifetime's worth of experience. Body and soul in a site of commemoration. A monument acting as the embodiment of a memorial, private and public inviting the viewer to participate in the painting. A testimony to its history, proud upright and scarred. Body as a Monument.