MAAIKE SCHOOREL

In order to decode the subjects concealed in Schoorel’s brushwork, her audience must adopt a slower approach to looking that allows space to combine visual perception with the imagination. Descriptive titles seem to mislead the viewer who is initially confronted with an illusion of abstraction whose contents hover in a melée of colours. Schoorel’s paintings ask that we remain present within the experience of looking and understanding—resisting the need for immediate image-gratification that prevails within the circulation of images we encounter day-to-day. What is eventually presented through this sustained contemplation is neither the immediacy of the photographic snapshot or the labour of a restaged scene. Instead, Schoorel’s work gives space for her subjects to reveal themselves and to be reinterpreted in the mind of the beholder.

Maaike Schoorel (b. 1973, Santpoort) lives and works in Amsterdam.

Her solo exhibitions include Vera/Icon, Kunstverein Amsterdam, Amsterdam (2021–forthcoming); All About the Animal, Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo (2021); Maaike Schoorel at Van Wassenhove House, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle (2020); London | New York | Rome | Amsterdam, Gemeente Museum, The Hague (2017); Conversation Piece Part 2, Fondazione Memmo, Rome (2016); Maaike Schoorel, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem (2012); Maaike Schoorel - Zelfportretten & Stillevens, The Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, London (2011); and Album, Frans Hals Museum - Hal, Haarlem (2008).

Her group shows include Inner Spaces, The 7^th Biennial of Painting - Inner Spaces, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle (2020); Chapter 3HREE, Het HEM, Zaandam (2020); Binnenshuis, Mendes Wood DM, Brussels (2020); Garden of Earthly Delights, Gropius Bau, Berlin (2019); Art & Science Dialogues with Maarten Wijntjes, VSAC, Leuven (2019); Rumoer in de Stad, Gemeente Museum, The Hague (2017); The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed, 20^th Sydney Biennale, Sydney (2016); Hollandse Meesters in de 21e eeuw, EYE filmmuseum, Amsterdam (2016); Salon Hang, Kunstverein Amsterdam, Amsterdam (2015); Landscape: the Virtual, the Actual, the Possible?, Guangdong Times Museum, Guangzhou, Guangdong, touring to Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco (2014); How Soon is Now?, Manifesta Foundation & DutchCulture, Amsterdam (2014); Variations: Conversations in and around Abstract Painting, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles (2014); Painting Between the Lines, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art, California College of the Arts, San Francisco (2011); British Art Show 7: In the Days of the Comet, Hayward Touring Exhibitions (2010); and Eyes Wide Open – New to the Collection, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2008).

Schoorel recently returned to Amsterdam, having spent many years living in London, New York, Rome and Berlin. She has undertaken residency programmes at the Van Wassenhove House, Deurle (2020); KNIR, Rome (2016), organized by The Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science; American Academy in Rome (2015–2016); and ISCP New York (2012).

Courtesy Mendes Wood DM