Name:

FEMM

 

Location:

Amsterdam, Netherlands

 

 

 

Where do you live?

I live in Amsterdam with my boyfriend Jelle. We live in a booming neighborhood with a lot of bars and restaurants nearby. We love to go out during the weekend. Our street is at the waterfront, so it’s quiet, we can watch the boats passing by all day.  

 

 

Tell us about the work you create?

I’m an Amsterdam-based female artist creating bold, playful abstract art out of predominantly paper.  I ‘build up’ my compositions by adding layer onto layer, just like a painter would do with paint, hereby creating tangible ‘landscapes of paper.

 

What is your medium? Your process?

My way of working is highly intuitive and decisive. Seated at my desk in my atelier I rip, cut and carve brightly colored paper into pieces. These squares, triangles, pyramids are circles are the building blocks of my compositions. For hours, sometimes for days or even weeks, I play with these loose shapes, putting them together and taking them apart until that one final image appears under my hand. This final result naturally radiates the immediacy and playfulness it was created with. 


 

 

 

What is your day-to-day like?

I always start my day with a coffee and a to do list. It gives structure to my day. Most of the time I’m working on new art for exhibitions or I’m just trying out new things.

 

How did you get started making art?

Previously, I worked as a multidisciplinary stylist for various international clients and magazines. My sensitivity to colors, lines and compositions manifested itself in unexpected set designs and aesthetic images. Often, I would take leftover paper – a childhood fascination - from photoshoots back home.. Slowly but surely an impressive collection of paper came into being, that from 2020 onwards forms the starting point of my own visual explorations.

 

 

Where do you find your inspiration?

The metropolitan city is one of my greatest sources of inspiration. Whether it’s the zestful energy, the colorful clothes people wear, the verticality of the architecture or the colors of the sunrise and the sunset: the big city never fails to offer creative impulses. My luminous abstractions capture the city’s ever changing moods and dynamic at different times of the day in all seasons. 


 

 

Most rewarding — or surprising! — part of the job?

The way people react when they see my art always makes me happy. Most of the time people buy art for special occasions like a marriage or a graduation.

 

Best behind-the-scenes story?

My boyfriend works as a surgeon and tells me stories about the things he is experiencing in his work. Usually, it’s hard for me to hear it but sometimes it ends well and I get inspired by it. 

 

 

Most memorable thing someone has said to you about your art?

That it brightens their day!

 

Any rituals?

Signing the art is like a ritual. I always do it in the same order.

 

Tell us about your new work on ArtStar.

The simple geometries and bright colors have an inherently contemporary and urban feel.  I love to work around distinct themes and look for contrasting subjects each time. As such, every single one of my collections exudes its very own energy and it’s unique reflection of my faith in the human spirit.  

 ‘With her warming yellow and reds, striking blues and vivid greens, she hopes to add a dash of optimism to the world at large – and to your world specifically.’