Lotje Van Lieshout

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...

Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam 2000-2005, BA Fine Arts
Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam 2007-2009, MA Fine Arts

Solo exhibitions:
2023 The Permutable Snackbar Front Room, Amsterdam
2019 Virtual Dioramas NeverNeverLand, Amsterdam
2009 Ik ben een kapitein MuseumGouda, Gouda
2007 Hotel Zonder Dieren Kunsthuis Syb, Beetsterzwaag