about the artist

Landscapes of the Mind

Engelina Zandstra is a Dutch artist living in Amsterdam, Netherlands

For the past several years, I have been in Amsterdam studying painting, etching, silk screening and modeling. But recently I have concentrated on painting

My work balances between abstract and figurative. Images are created in my mind. The impressions in my memory are the source of my imagination. Sometimes I find inspiration in ordinary objective coincidence. An idea is worked out directly on the canvas, without any prior study. Each painting is like a link in my creative development, a frontier process of my personal style. In this style development occurs quickly.

Colour, composition, figuration and abstraction are not constant components in my work, but subject to my spiritual exploration trips. My fascination with images that are not possible or are not true representations of reality is linked to Surrealism. In Surrealism, forms and colors can have different meanings. The viewer is thus forced to give attention to the different meanings of each colour and each shape. My artistic intuition, starting with images of the mind, uses shapes, forms and colours and combines these aspects to a painting with my own special “handwriting”.

The style of my paintings can best be described as lyrical-abstract. Sometimes the beginning is abstract, and then at some point human figures may comw into shape. Sometimes the human presence, and defining human relationships, is necessary for further inspiration.

Usually I work in many thin layers on top of each other. Each new layer gives inspirartion for the following one, with new ideas. Because of the different layers and colours, the acrylic paint gets depth and character. Colour is important for me: the alchemy of colour. This defines for me the atmosphere of a painting.

I call my paintings “Landscapes of the Mind” because they are reproductions of the images in my imagination.

As for their meaning: I consider my paintings like music, they don’t need words for explanation. Each one tells its own tale, which may be different for each viewer.