John & Marine van Vlissingen Art Foundation brings talented, Dutch visual artists into the limelight. Each year, the foundation selects a promising artist. They then travel to a destination of their choice where their inspiration can blossom into new works. To make up for the lost COVID-19 year, the foundation highlighted not one, but two artists this year: Floris Felix and Marie Reintjes. The exhibitions, showcasing the new pieces created by these talented artists, were held from November 2022 until January 8, 2023 at Museum Singer Laren.
FLORIS FELIX IN PAGAN HEAVENS – A Dutch Artist in Italy
Artist Floris Felix (1989) is the winner of the Van Vlissingen Art Foundation Grant 2021. Fascinated by the Renaissance and Michelangelo, he wandered around Italy for a month, visiting the cities of Venice, Florence, Rome and Palermo. Once returned to the Netherlands, this translated into works wherein the human body served as a starting point and an emphasis on color, fueled by thoughts of mosaic church canopies, ancient palazzos, golden Madonnas, angels, auras and aureoles, God’s eye and Fellini’s memories.
MARIE REINTJES IN ICELAND – A Dutch artist in the Land of Fire and Ice
Artist Marie Reintjes (1990) is the winner of the Van Vlissingen Art Foundation Grant 2022. In May, she traveled to Iceland: the land of fire and ice, Vikings and deep-rooted superstitions. The fascination with the overwhelming vastness of nature and the urge to discover, see and learn new things were the main motivations for her choice of Iceland. The landscape with colors and textures not found in the Netherlands supplied her with a new, and reinvigorated, momentum for her paintings.
