Nelleke Cloosterman

Bio | Selected Works | CV

Nelleke Cloosterman lives and works in London. Having completed a bachelor’s degree in visual arts and a Master’s degree in Fine Arts from KASK, BE, Cloosterman completed a postgraduate in Fine Arts at HISK, Ghent, BE. Cloosterman explores identity, female representation, and the coexistence of different belief systems, woven together through the lens of symbolism and personal history. Nelleke Cloosterman's paintings appear at first glance in the Vanitas fashion, still lifes of flowers, birds, fruit and candles, 17th-century imagery of expensive worldly possessions. But across the works are a series of small rebellions that manipulate the model of the Vanitas. Void-like settings, usually a non-descript room with the suggestion of a boundary, a wall, a curtain, an end, are opened up by Cloosterman. Walls become endless skies and dense forests, expanding the scope of the paintings across worlds. Here, multiple realities seem to exist, exchanged in thin layers of oil paint. This activates the objects in the paintings; birds are uncaged, flying wingless against an expanse of blue.

Selected exhibitions