MARCELLE HANSELAAR
MARCELLE HANSELAAR
La Petite Mort 6, from Notes from an Incomplete Journey (2005)
Etching/aquatint, edition of 30, 20 x 25cm
'In 2005 I drew, directly on the etching plates, a series of images in the mode of tableaux vivants. They depict the curious and hidden habits that might be indulged in behind closed doors and drawn curtains, of those moments when our eyes are wide open and our bodies bushy-tailed. This series of 19 prints I called La Petite Mort and I printed them in an edition of 30.
I selected five prints from the first five sets of this edition to form the Notes from an Incomplete Journey, a custom-made portfolio which contains a title page, five text sheets and five of these etchings. The texts are quotes from different 17th-and 18th-century travel books which I once owned, having inherited them from my father, who was an antiquarian bookseller in the Hague. While leafing through these evocative books some time ago, I copied down some remarks of the travellers which caught my eye and fancy. Their observations and thirst for knowledge about places and people never before encountered match, for me, the curious customs and behaviour depicted in my etchings.
And, although these texts are factual descriptions, they look and read to us now as unreal. Inversely, my images look unreal but they actually show us an "under the skin" reality, the knowledge of which keeps us from drowning.'
The daughter of an antiquarian bookseller, the painter and printmaker Marcelle Hanselaar was born in Rotterdam and studied fine art at the Royal Academy of Arts, The Hague and printmaking at Chelsea & Kensington College, London. Hanselaar has subsequently exhibited widely throughout the world, and has taught fine art at Central St Martins, London, South West University, Chongqing, China, and Sotheby's Educational Institute, London.
Her work is held by numerous public collections, including the British Museum, London, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, New Hall, Cambridge, the Sakimi Art Museum, Okinawa, Japan, the Guandong Fine Art Museum, Guandong, China, and the Frans Masereel Center, Belgium. Similarly, it has been recognised internationally by a number of awards, including the Presse Papier Award, Biennale internationale d’estampe contemporaine de Trois-Rivieres, Quebec (2003), the Aberystwyth, University of Wales Purchase Prize at Originals 06, London (2006), and a Residency at the Frans Masereel Center, Belgium (2008); in 2011 Hanselaar has won the first prize in the MOMA Wales Tabernacle Art Competition and a Birgit Skiöld Award for her livre d'artiste, Pillow Book of Endless Nights (which was awarded at the London Art Book Fair at the Whitechapel Art Gallery and enabled the Victoria and Albert Museum's National Art Library to acquire a copy for its collections), and her 'Self Portrait with Exploding Chest' was short-listed for the Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Competition and subsequently acquired by the Ruth Borchard Collection.
The subject of numerous exhibitions during the last thirty years, Hanselaar's most recent solo shows include Mama Mama, the Bear is Loose (De Queeste Art, Watou, Belgium and Quest 21, Brussels, 2010-2011), Biting the Bullet (Millenium Gallery, St Ives, 2010), Sticks & Stones (University Gallery and Baring Wing, Newcastle, 2010), Sweet 'n' Low (Viktor Wynd Fine Art Inc., London. 2010); Back to Basics (SNAP Gallery, Edmonton, Canada, 2009), The Weight of Smoke (De Queeste Art, Watou and University of Brussels Gallery, Brussels, 2007; Galerie de Buytensael, Arnhem and East West Gallery, London, 2008), Down the Rabbithole (University of Aberystwyth Gallery, Aberystwyth, 2008), La Petite Mort (East West Gallery, London and De Queeste Kunstkamers, Watou, 2005; Stephanie Burns Fine Art, Canberra, 2006), Intimate Conversations (Artonomy Fine Art, Truro, 2006), Shouts & Whispers (Stephanie Burns Gallery, Canberra, 2004), Silence is Easy (De Queeste Kunstkamers, Watou, 2004), You Said You Loved Me (RM Art, Essen, 2003), Sometimes I Dream About Reality (East West Gallery, London, 2003), Incomplete Tales (Erasmus Gallery, Rotterdam, 2001), All of Me (East West Gallery, London, 2001), Crossing Borders (Gallery at Royal Crescent, Edinburgh, 2000), Close to the Bone (New Hall, Cambridge, 1999), and Burying the Hatchet (The Millinery Works, London, 1999).
Hanselaar has also shown in many group exhibitions, in Britain, continental Europe, North America, Asia, and Australasia; the most recent of these are the 8e Biennale Internationale de Gravure Contemporaine de Liège (Cabinet des Estampes et des Dessins de la Ville de Liège, Liège, Belgium, 2011), BABE (Arnolfini, Bristol, 2011), 400 Women (Canongate Venture, Edinburgh, 2011), The Art of Giving (Saatchi Gallery, London, 2010), Multiplied Art Fair (Christie’s South Kensington, London, 2010), and the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition (Royal Academy, London, 2010).
Articles featuring Hanselaar and her work have appeared in newspapers and journals in the British and continental press, including The Guardian, The Sunday Telegraph, The Times, The Independent, Printmaking Today, Art Review, Galleries, Kunst & Antiek Journaal, De Telegraaf, and Süddeutsche Zeitung.
For further information about Marcelle Hanselaar, galleries of paintings and prints, a calendar of exhibitions, and a bibliography, see her website: www.marcellehanselaar.com.
