Roosmarijn Schoonewelle

Roosmarijn Schoonewelle (Hoorn, 1980) primarily works on paper. She makes drawings, collages and objects of drawn and painted paper and together they increasingly form an installation. She works on small as well as large scale and in her work she combines different materials.

Her drawings and installations tell a story, but the underlying messages remains obscure. Her drawings are entering the field of both figuration and abstraction. They are both landscapes and still lives where geometrical forms play an important role. A range of moods is reflected in the intimate as well as fierce drawings.

Doubt, longing and a feeling for the absurd are important sources of inspiration. A feeling of harmony and a cosmic connection or the lack of this is a returning motive. In the work the use of colour is an important element. The intense colours and big contrasts that Schoonewelle uses are aesthetic, but also give a feeling of alienation.

Schoonewelle has a fascination for nature and how people relate to it. Man as being a void, who by its enormous curiosity tries to map and conquer the world, yet also destroys and loses. What fascinates her is mankind’s wish to comprehend everything the earth offers, while at the same time this wish contributes to the destruction of it all. The drawing itself is a quest for meaning.

In 2005 Schoonewelle graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. In 2006 she received a starters grant from the Fonds BKVB. In the same year she started working together with visual artists Richtje Reinsma and Heleen Wiemer on a regular basis under the name of Het Harde Potlood ('The Hard Pencil'). She exhibited among others in Arti et Amicitiae (2011), De Kijkkasten (2009), Retort Art Space (2012) en het Zeemanshuis (2011) in Amsterdam. She participated in the international group exhibition Jeune Création 2009, Le CENT QUATRE - 104 in Paris. In February 2011 Schoonewelle exhibited solo with an installation in C3 called Large Body of Water.