Maria Lobensteijn

I'm a self-taught painter/photoartist born in 1969 as a Libra.

To teach myself how to paint, I started making 'impressionistic' work, always knowing I wanted to work with more freedom and passion and end up as an artist who doesn't need a lot of shape and detail to tell a story. My goal: becoming a 'superconductor' of emotion by direct communication. Having an enormous admiration for artists who had the ability to pull out what kept their minds busy and depict this in an unfiltered way,  always fascinated me more than technical perfection. I remember the hypnotizing effect it had on my 6-year old self to see footage of Karel Appel throwing full paint cans against a wall. Later while discovering the work of the impressionists, expressionists en abstracts, I realized how special it was to have narrative power by removing distractive detail. I want to dub my latest work 'Direct Messaging'; adressing modern issues inspired by this era. During my lifetime computercommunication became central: subjects that used to be documentary material became public property on the internet, especially Youtube. This has become the language of this generation.

The red bag leitmotiv started by accident; I decided that for the painting now called 'Roietasman' the color of the bag should be red, expressing the pain, trauma's, self hate and fear every person carries with them in this journey through life.

By painting, I started digging in my own life, so coincidence became on purpose and the red bag returns in more of my work, like  Freezin' Marilyn.