Marcelle Hanselaar: Prints

Marcelle Hanselaar: Prints
Monday–Friday: 10am-6pm, 21 March – 6 April 2018
12 Star Gallery, Europe House, 32 Smith Square, London, SW1P 3EU

Marcelle Hanselaar is a London-based Dutch painter and printmaker.
Self-taught, she started out as an abstract painter before turning to figuration. Subsequently, she became fascinated by etching, its harsh, bitten line perfectly suiting her subject matter. Her works are in public collections across the world, including The British Museum, The V & A, The Ashmolean, Oxford, The Fitzwilliam, Cambridge, The Whitworth Museum and Art Gallery, Manchester, The Meermanno museum, The Hague, Guandong Fine Art Museum, Guandong, China and many others. She has exhibited and won awards worldwide.

The Crying Game (2015-17)
A series of 30 etchings.
Prints 1-20 were executed in 2015. Prints 21-30 were executed in 2017.
The Crying Game 1: Etching
The Crying Game 2-16, 18-19, 21-30: Etching/aquatint
The Crying Game 17 & 20: Sugar lift/aquatint
Edition of 30 plus 5APs
38cm x 43cm

“Der Krieg, Otto Dix's series of 51 prints, modeled on Goya’s series Los Desastres de la Guerra, is not only an account of his own horrific experiences, but also a masterclass in etching. I always wanted to test myself like that. And when I see and hear the ongoing reporting of wars, of harsh things we do to each other, I feel I have to do something in order not to be complicit. And being an artist all I can do perhaps is draw. And draw attention to what matters.

The last few years we have been surrounded by conflict in the Middle East.
With countless refugees, people like you and I, and endless reporting on the ongoing destruction, it is impossible not to be deeply affected by it. Like most people in the West, I have no direct experience of war, but nevertheless I ask myself how I myself how I would behave in such a lawless and fearful situation.”

A set of The Crying Game prints is in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge and various private collections.

White Collar Black Man (2013-2014)
Etching/ chine-collé Edition of 30: 1-15 on grey Korean paper, 16-30 Variable Edition 69cm x 55cm
“White Collar Black Man is an image in response the slave trade and colonialist view that a non white human was not a person till they were molded in dress, behavior and thinking to resemble a white one.”
We’re all bleeding (2012)
A series of 9 Etchings with Aquatint. Edition of 30: 15 hand coloured and 15 B/W 35cm x 40cm
We’re all bleeding features “snapshots of scenes portraying our fears fantasies and secret desires”. As with her formidable body of existing work in printing as well as painting, Marcelle here focusses on “a parallel universe of primal fears and innate savagery that exists beneath the pleasing and pleasant veneer of everyday life and a world that remains largely hidden within a supposedly liberated modern world.”
The images range from “women getting their ruptured bodies repaired in the healing comfort of a hammam, to the beast in us when we are in love. From our imprisonment in domesticity to the illusionary satisfaction of shopping.”
“I love the violence of the scored etched line & the many layered dramatic possibilities of aquatint. That suits my subject matter: animal instincts and the female psyche. I like to show the rebellious, erotic, deviant, funny, cruel and secret side of people. I discovered etching about 10 years ago. As an oil painter, I think in layers and build up a tonal quality of line and aquatint by repeatedly adding new grounds. Etching is a medium of darkness and because the dark makes me more courageous and less self-conscious I often draw late at night. Somehow, the combination of drawing with a sharp etching needle on a hard ground animates my descent into the rabbit hole, a place where a fierce faceless longing bares its teeth.”

For further information, contact Julian Page
www.julianpage.co.uk julian@julianpage.co.uk 07939 501552

The 12 Star Gallery at Europe House shows work which celebrates the creativity and cultural diversity that is the hallmark of the European Union.