Marcelle Hanselaar

Visual artist, painter and etcher. Like a writer I create characters, I paint portraits of people who do not exist but who embody personal and observed experiences, from softly whispered feelings to raw gnarling emotions. As a woman I am very much aware of the fights for power and dirty games; not only in the struggle for gender equality in social and economical terms but more profoundly the internal struggle to be seen as a whole person. To be seen or see oneself as a commodity, a body, old or young, acceptable, desirable or of being of no consequence whatsoever. Being an artist gives me a voice to express these many facets simultaneously in one picture. I portray people in undefined spaces, caught in a private, secret moment, which puts the viewer