THE BLUE SALON

Born in 1973, Santpoort, The Netherlands.  Lives and works in Amsterdam.

The subject matter of Maaike Schoorel’s paintings is drawn from familiar experiences and everyday encounters. Schoorel uses the immediacy of photography to gather source material for her paintings that are, in turn, rooted in the art-historical genres of landscape, portrait and still life. 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 colors. Schoorel’spaintings 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 labor 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.

Some of the artist's solo exhibitions include: The Willet-Holthuysen, Amsterdam (2022); Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo (2021); Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle (2020); Gemeente Museum, The Hague (2017); Fondazione Memmo, Rome (2016); Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem (2012); and Museum de Hallen (2008).

Additionally, her work was included in group exhibitions such as: Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo (2023); The 7th Biennial of Painting - Inner Spaces, Deurle (2020); Het HEM, Zaandam (2020); Mendes Wood DM, Brussels (2020); Gropius Bau, Berlin (2019); Gemeente Museum, The Hague (2017); 20th Sydney Biennale (2016); Kunstverein Amsterdam (2015).

Schoorel returned to Amsterdam in 2016, 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).