Colorful art, stained glass windows, and the splendor of a chapel: the paintings of Dutch artist Daphne van der Meij capture our feelings.
Exhibition Daphne van der Meij
At the chapel of Op Hodenpijl in Schipluiden, the Netherlands, you can visit the exhibition of Daphne van der Meij in June 2020. The exhibition consists of many colorful paintings that each bring out a different feeling. In the paintings, you can see faces and human bodies, some more abstract than others. Stills of kissing people, a naked woman, surprised or flustered people. What I see might be very different from what you see.
The brick background helps bring out the colors of the paintings even more. Just like the feelings are captured in the paintings, the paintings are trapped in the alcoves of the chapel. If you take a step back to look at the paintings from a distance, you can also take in the stained glass windows above the paintings. In a way the colors of the stained glass neutralize the colors of the paintings, making them less bright/loud and helping the paintings to blend in. The people in the paintings become visitors of the church, each with their own feelings and characters. It isn’t hard to imagine a gathering where some visitors feel like the people in the paintings.
If you go up the stairs to the tower you can find two other paintings, this time against a white background. The black outline of one of them sets the painting apart from the chapel, making the expression even stronger because of the color contrast. The location of this one was very well chosen; the expression wouldn’t have been as strong in front of a brick wall.
Experience
I liked this exhibition very much because of the contrast that was created, sometimes setting the painting apart from its surroundings and at other times helping it to blend in. The paintings are very human, despite the fact that the colors can be perceived as loud (as feelings often are). They’re us, at different times of our lives.
Visit the exhibition
The exhibition is open from Tuesday to Sunday from 10.00 until 20.30 in June 2020. You can only enter the church via the main entrance (the restaurant entrance is closed).
Location: Rijksstraatweg 20/22, 2636 AX Schipluiden, Netherlands
If you can’t visit the exhibition in person, you can watch a 360 degrees impression on Google Maps.
About the artist
Daphne van der Meij is an autonomous artist and feels at home in the world of expression. As a child, she was always busy making things. If not elaborate sand castles on the beach, then drawings, clay figures, or paintings.
The paintings she creates are a translation of her intuition, feeling, memory, or story. In her creative career, she has created many things. From stage design to visual education, but also interior styling. When she gets the image, she makes it… she works intuitively. Some paintings could bring you in touch with a deeper feeling within yourself so that a process can be started. The look and feel of her paintings vary greatly. One looks very cheerful, the other very beautiful and deep and yet another feels loud. In her paintings, Daphne uses many colors. She often puts these on with the painting knife, which gives the canvas a lot of structure. The dark outline of the abstracted figure is a characteristic of her. Her style can also be described as abstracted figurative art.
(source artist bio: website Op Hodenpijl)
