Explore the expo of artist Maartje van den Noort with beautiful new drawings and paintings, both online and in our Hattem store. 

"I am very happy with the collaboration. It's just right. We have known each other for a long time and also worked together on an exhibition when you just opened at the mill in Hoonhorst. There is also work of mine in the White House "I really enjoyed it when we met again at Object Rotterdam. We immediately had a lot of nice new ideas that made me happy. And I think our work fits together really well.” - Maartje

Artist Maartje van den Noort lives and works in Amersfoort. She graduated from the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam in 2006 and has been making beautifully refined drawings, paintings and graphics ever since. Her monumental tapestries are woven at the Textile Museum in Tilburg.

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We are visiting her studio in the characteristic Onze Lieve Vrouwe ter Eem monastery on the edge of the city and the forest. The weather is nice and sunny and the doors are wide open. Flowers and plants bloom everywhere outside and nature is also very close indoors. Wherever you look you see dried flowers and branches and other herbarium treasures. “We have been living in Amersfoort for a few years now and it is a fantastic place. I like working here, my studio feels like a second home. In the spring I study the plants that emerge from the ground in the garden, in the autumn I draw the dried flowers and leaves that I collect from everywhere and that you see around you.”What inspires you?
“The rhythm of the seasons is my greatest source of inspiration. Spring, summer, autumn and winter. I like the different seasons. The cycle of nature evokes a new feeling every time that I enjoy. Serene, hopeful and powerful. When you look at a leaf, a twig, a reed stem or a flock of birds. It's like poetry. And I like to translate those beautiful, tranquil forms as briefly as possible in my work. I like to focus on that. It's a metaphor for how I view the world. That is beauty to me. And I also get inspiration from my friends, family, music, books and design.”

How would you describe your work?
“I am mainly a painter in a drawing way. I have been drawing all my life and I feel most in my element when painting. I like to work with natural pigment that dissolves easily in water. I work in phases, because the background has to be right first. I like it when the background is thin and translucent. That can take quite a while because I apply several layers of paint. Sometimes a background is only good after ten layers, sometimes after just one. Then I always paint my subject very quickly. Then life goes on. It's hard to explain, but I'm not going to sit around and sketch. It just has to happen right away. As far as I'm concerned, that contains the power and spontaneity that give the work a certain appeal.”

What do you like most about your work?
“What I really enjoy most about my work is creating. Each painting is a piece of a moment in time that I have been working on. A piece of tranquil energy. I actually think that is a very strange thing. So these are all pieces of a moment in time that I have been working on. As a child I was always making and I received positive reactions to that, which made me happy. That also gave me a kind of self-confidence which was nice. I also find it special that other people enjoy my work. That's the icing on the cake.”nd ik het bijzonder dat andere mensen van mijn werk genieten. Dat is de kers op de taart.”

How did your fascination with nature arise?
“It was only later that I came to appreciate nature. Actually when I lived in Amsterdam. There I noticed that it gave me the kind of peace that I needed in all the hustle and bustle of the city. The rawness, vastness and barrenness of nature, the winters of Zeeland. I can really enjoy that now. When I discovered that, I realized that my family has always had a lot of love for nature. Through my mother, my grandfather as a grower in Rotterdam, my great-aunt who was already filling rolls with details of the plant world in the 1930s. In retrospect, I think I acquired a fascination from within. And what was special was that I noticed that my drawings came naturally when I drew floral subjects. It felt like my handwriting was just right on this one. A bit whimsical and sensitive.”
What does slow living mean to you?
"For me, that means trying not to want too much and living according to my means. Not rushing from here to here all the time, no longer full of plans. But that I am connected to those close by. Peace and attention for what is important. Slowing down and enjoying loved people around me."