About the artist
Colour as asecond nature
EllesBB — Elles Blankenstein Bezemer — is a strikingly colourful person with a boundless need for expression. Her mission: making the world around her more beautiful.
She never knows beforehand what a painting will become — every creation is a surprise, even to herself.
Her story
A life devoted to beauty
The common thread running through Elles' life is beauty. From early childhood she has felt the urge to embellish her surroundings, and she only finds peace in harmonious spaces. When that harmony is missing, she creates it herself.
Before she found the canvas, she spent a lifetime in design, decoration and fashion. She worked for several well-known Dutch interior designers and for many years ran her own shop in Deventer — first vintage and curiosities, later American finds combined with fashion.
Painting came later in life, and she is entirely self-taught. Unlike most artists, she cannot picture an image in her mind's eye: she starts from a vague feeling and only discovers what the painting wants to become while she is working on it.
In the studio
Painted with great panache
Elles translates her expression onto canvases of considerable size. A brush rarely comes into play — she works with rollers, palette knives and whatever is within reach. You could almost say she sculpts her canvases.
She usually paints wet-in-wet, simply because she is in a hurry: once in a flow, she cannot stop. She has no fixed theme. There are periods in which related works emerge — and then comes a turning point, and she creates something completely different, often as a shorter or longer series.
Exhibitions & Recognition
At home and abroad
Her work is regularly requested for exhibitions in galleries and at exhibitions, in the Netherlands and far beyond.
- 01Exhibited in
- London, Paris, Düsseldorf, Copenhagen, Stockholm, München, Strasbourg, The Hague (...)
- 02International
- Invited for exhibitions in galleries and at shows abroad, including the USA and Singapore
- 03Award
- Winner of the 'All About Art' award in Eindhoven
- 04Publications
- Featured five times in Dutch and international art books
“I start with a feeling, and while I work something emerges — only then do I see what it becomes.”