In her atmospheric portraits, still lifes, and landscapes, Dutch artist Hannah van Bart (b. 1963; Oud-Zuilen, Maarssen, the Netherlands) captures strange figures and uncertain lands. Employing figuration and abstraction in a practice that transcends genre, van Bart constructs settings from imagination and feelings from memory. Articulating the physical and emotional contours of her figures and landscapes with remarkable psychological depth, van Bart evokes a simultaneous sense of longing and unease, of that which is at once inescapably familiar and acutely unknowable.
In van Bart’s paintings and drawings, haunting landscapes emerge from a painterly fog while figures—human, semi-human, and animal—penetrate viewers with sharp, longing gazes. Characterized by distinctive outlines, repeated patterns, and layered brushwork, van Bart’s style is pregnant with emotional resonance. Drawing inspiration from disparate sources—from the warm golden light of the Dutch Old Masters to the gestural freedom of expressionism—van Bart has developed a singular visual language of memory and perception.
Van Bart’s work was the subject of a 2023 solo exhibition at the Landhuis Oud Amelisweerd, Centraal Museum, Utrecht, the Netherlands. Her paintings and drawings have also been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Kunstmuseum Den Haag, The Hague, the Netherlands; the Cobra Museum of Modern Art, Amstelveen, the Netherlands, and Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, NY; and Vielmetter, Los Angeles, CA. van Bart’s work has been featured in exhibitions at the Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, WI; the Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FL; the Singer Laren, the Netherlands; the Kunstmuseum Den Haag, the Hague, the Netherlands; the Cobra Museum of Modern Art, Amstelveen, the Netherlands; and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Centraal Museum, Utrecht, the Netherlands; the Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, WI; Kunstmuseum Den Haag, The Hague, the Netherlands; Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH; Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, RI; and the Teylers Museum, Haarlem, the Netherlands.