Karin Hoogesteger

Karin Hoogesteger was born in 1973 in Emmeloord, the Netherlands. Her artistic work explores and depicts the tension between culture and nature. She develops a sensitivity to the lighting and the color tones that largely characterize her universe. Even when she reproduces nature in her motifs, there is always a connection that points to the human influence of nature's development. This reinforces the sense of melancholy and poetry that Karin Hoogesteger often creates in her motifs by switching between vivid natural colors and sparsely filled surfaces. For her, the work process means more than the result itself.

After seven years of art education, Karin Hoogesteger started working as an illustrator, after which she decided to become an artist full time. Her art is presented at many galleries in the Netherlands and at international art fair exhibitions.

It was in Spain, where she lived for a year, that she drifted away from the classic portrait paintings, to instead paint her surroundings. The climate, the scents and the bright sunlight in Spain have greatly influenced how she approaches the canvas. Thus she developed a sensitivity to lighting that now characterizes her artistic expression. Many of her compositions are dominated by cold colors, which are enhanced by a bright red shade, which creates a halo around the subject.

When she tries to see the world with a childlike innocence, Karin Hoogesteger allows herself to be overwhelmed by the beauty and idyll of a scene. She tries to reproduce that experience on the canvas so that the viewer feels absorbed in the subject of the painting. The atmosphere in the paintings gives the viewer space to see their own stories, reflected in these paintings rather than Karin Hoogesteger's own experiences.

Karin Hoogesteger – Artist manifesto (video)