Femke Schoonman

Country where you live:

City where you live:

Statement : 

Some artists know what they want to create and why they are creating it long before their brush touches the canvas, I am not that artist. Painting is an intuitive process for me, and I often don’t know what I am creating until it is done. Frustrating as it can be, I have learnt to see a beauty in this process, and it has become something I wish to capture and explore in my work. My indecisiveness is challenged through my paintings as I work with mediums like inks, which I have little control over, and acrylic which require me to be brave and purposeful. I paint based on how I feel in the moment, almost as if the paintbrush is guiding me.

I enjoy exploring tension within my work both between shape and color and the textures in my marks. Through this I am able to capture my physical and psychological experience in an environment. In a way, adapting what we see, hear, smell, think, and feel into a physical form is my way of capturing a moment. These thoughts and feelings guide me and push me to what I want to paint. I find that there is no better way for me to experience and process a moment in time than through painting.

Contrast is a key aspect of my work, sometimes through the use of ink and acrylic, and sometimes through the combination of photography and paint. Something so fluid next to something bold accentuates the characteristics of both forms and adds depth to the piece. They appear in battle with each other, yet can always be found near one another, like the way the beach holds the sea and a forest surrounds a road. Creating helps me face these constant challenges, and this journey continues to shape me.

Noor I
Noor I, Digital Painting, 24x36 in.
Noor II
Noor II, Digital Painting, 24x36 in.
Noor III
Noor III, Digital Painting, 24x36 in.
Untitled
36 x 60 inches, acrylic paint and alcohol inks on canvas
Guava Lava
Guava Lava, 36 x 60 inches, acrylic paint and alcohol inks on canvas
Bio: 

Femke Schoonman is a painter from the Netherlands, currently studying at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Combatting the uncertainty of moving countries frequently as a child, she often plays with the concept of controlling the uncontrollable, mirrored by the mediums she explores. Contrast is a constant theme in Femke’s work and achieves this through her bold colour palette and through her use of shape, texture, and depth. Nothing is more exciting to the artist than travelling and exploring nature, as it is what fuels a lot of her inspiration.

Femke attributes her background in windsurfing to fuel the way she interprets a moment. Elements that are often forgotten, like the way the current dances in a bed of water or the wind casts a pattern in the sky, are what Femke enjoys visualizing and emphasising throughout her work. Femke’s work was recently featured in the Savannah College of Art and Design’s open studio in the fall of 2021 and is currently in private collections.

Poland
Warszawa
United States
CAMBRIDGE
Finland
Helsinki
United States
San Francisco Bay
United States
San Francisco

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