Five Strong Men Painting

Lotje van Lieshout, born in 1980 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, remained close to her roots throughout her life, never venturing far from the neighborhood where she grew up and completed her studies at the Rietveld Academie and Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam. In response to her strong attachment to her local environment, van Lieshout escapes into the creation of her own imaginative realms through various artistic mediums, including paintings, drawings, and short films. Jumping back and forth between digital and analogue techniques, she combines both traditional and contemporary digital mediums. Her work explores the tension between reality and fantasy, authenticity and artificiality. 'My artistic research is driven by a desire to travel to the imaginairy places depicted in cinema, literature, and historical travelogues, and share my exploration of those non-existing places. My works invite viewers into a playful world of make-believe, challenging them to suspend disbelief much like in cinematic experiences. These illusory spaces serve as a sanctuary for me, where I feel unwatched longing for adventure. My paintings depict artificial, human-made environments, painted in intense, technicolor-like hues. Many of my works evoke an eerie atmosphere reminiscent of abandoned film sets, leaving viewers to ponder what lies beyond the frame. For example the paintings featuring animals suspended in mid-air raises questions about whether these animals are alive or fake. After-hours scenes at the Natural History Museum portray craftsmen arranging displays to create the illusion of landscapes, mirroring my own methods. These scenes suggest the build-up of a theme park or staged environment where fabricated animals serve as props or decorations. For my films, I meticulously construct sets using simple, cheap materials to create playful illusions. I draw inspiration from early cinema pioneers and their analog special effects techniques. Often, I appear as a solitary figure, clad in handmade eccentric costumes aimlessly wandering through my crafted sets. Combined with my serious demeanor, the scenes have a sense of uncanniness and awkward humor. Presensinting my work, I combine various techniques and methods to create immersive experiences, ranging from nearly forgotten pre-cinema inventions to the latest technologies such as VR, AR, and CG.