Irene Hanenbergh

Exhibiting internationally since the late 1980s, Irene Hanenbergh has amassed a large body of work which the artist describes as ‘liminal portals’ into other worlds, and ‘windows of longing’, suggesting psychological and physical spaces that lie just beyond our grasp. Her evocative oil paintings are personal and contemporary renderings of the sublime in which scenes of primordial forests, lakes, mountains and oceans morph in and out of formation, infused with influences of the baroque, romanticism, and marginal fantasy genres. Exploring the slippage between contemporary and historic landscape painting, key styles and traditions including folk art, mystic and visionary practices, (faux) political histories and cults have been erased, repainted and spiritually charged, creating fantastical and otherworldly shifts as brushstrokes collide with impossible foliage, dark shadows and the spectre of history. Her works do not rely on narrative structures for the formation of content; rather they seduce or just invite the viewer to become immersed in another world, another time, another sensation.


Irene completed a Master of Fine Arts by Research at the Victorian College of the Arts (The University of Melbourne) in 2010. She also holds a...

Academic

2007/2010 MFA (by Research) Victorian College of the Arts and Music, The University of Melbourne, Australia.
2000/2004 Victoria University of Technology, Electronic & Interactive Media, Melbourne, Australia.
1995/1997 Athens School of Fine Arts, Postgraduate Program in Printmaking, Athens, Greece.
1992/1995 Athens School of Fine Arts, BA (Hons) Printmaking, Athens, Greece.
1993/1994 Royal College of Art (RCA), Postgraduate Program in Printmaking (PEP), London, UK.
1990/1992 Athens School of Fine Arts, Postgraduate Program in Sculpture & Installation, Athens, Greece.
1984/1988 Academy of Fine Arts Minerva, BA (Hons) in Painting & Sculpture, Groningen, The Netherlands.