moody sun 3 Drawing

Visual artist Manuela Tjarkina (‘Maan’) Vermeeren is based in Haarlem, The Netherlands. After seven years of art education (HKU Utrecht), specializing in drawing, painting and graphics and collage techniques, Maan started to surf the rising wave of the internet. Keen on the opportunities offered by this new medium, she trained herself to become an all-round ux/ui/visual designer, working for more than two decades at her own studio and later at a commercial TV station. In the growing awareness that she could make better use of her creative talents, in 2017 she quit her job as a senior designer and decided to divide her time between freelance design work and creative autonomous work. Given her professional career, it is not surprising that Maan has developed a preference for digital media. The iPad is her favorite medium, but her art is often post-processed on her Mac. Occasionally, she also works on large non-digital objects in mixed media, which are not yet for sale. Maan cannot be linked to a specific movement or style. The work of artists like Tàpies, WOLS, Motherwell, Twombly or Heyboer is her 'source to go back to' when she gets stuck in her own creative process. But young artists like Oscar Murillo can also inspire her. Abstract expressionism lies close to her heart, though she doesn't shy away from the recognizable in portraits. Despite many years of formal training, Maan's work tends towards Art Brut or outsider art. Grained. Raw. Spontaneous. Mixed technique. Art Informel. In short: a unique own handwriting and iconography. Maan about her main source of inspiration: "I never knew, but my mother kept a lot of my children's drawings. A few years ago, she gave me that pile. It was with great pleasure that I discovered that as a kid I already used the same motifs and iconography that bubbled up at the art academy and in my practice since. When I think about it, artistically speaking, everything I've learned at the art academy just gets in the way. My best work, like the 'Moody sun' and 'Fire walk with me' collections, emerges from a source that has been inside me since my earliest childhood. As the great Pablo Picasso said: Every child is an artist. The difficulty is to remain one when you grow up.” Although not yet represented in official art galleries, Maan’s work is on display in her own home gallery 9 Beaufort Art Gallery in Haarlem.