Oil on board, signed bottom right
Image size: 15 x 11 1/4 inches (38 x 28.5 cm)
Contemporary style handmade frame
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Manheel, with his extravagant appearance, is inspired by the spirit of trickery and those who can break the predictable flow. He sits on the boundaries between sanity and insanity, happiness and sorry, wisdom and naivety; the in-between. He soberly reveals the drama in our shadow side when repressed and while this is absurd enough to classify as unreal, it is too humane to ignore. Serving us a tear, deprived from the sadness connected to his alienation, with a yearning desire for some empathy and belongingness.
The Artist
Heijligers is a contemporary artist who studied at Willem de Kooning Academie in Rotterdam and now lives and works in Amsterdam.
With her interest in psychology, Heijligers’ art explores the feelings of alienation and belongingness and this series takes inspiration from those who live in the margins of society. Her distinctive characters are deliberately unapologetic and difficult to classify within a fixed framework.
Using these characters as a catalyst she poses several questions in her paintings – how does one’s behaviour and habits influence classifications and how can one find shelter in the midst of their own alienation? In an interesting dichotomy her artworks also provide some potential answers. Her paintings elude to the notion that the disorientating nature of alienation has the potential to shift into something more, something grounded. Each of Heijligers’ characters champion the notion of individualism and channel the inert strength that uniqueness can provide.
