Mireille Ligterink

Dutch portrait painter Mireille Ligterink came to her uniquely arresting four-tone style unconventionally, through her training in art therapy. The social interaction and emotional vulnerability that portraiture requires comes across in her close-up impressionist acrylic renderings, and also, more unusually, informs her very choice of palette. Formal and expressive considerations guide her process: for each face she chooses four colors that reflect the personality of her subject, while also picking one particularly striking facial feature to emphasize.

The resulting portraits often incorporate vivid hues and surprisingly bold shading reminiscent of prints or illustrations. Ligterink’s canvases focus our vision on a gaze, an eye or a nose. Subjects often stare out at the viewer from the frame, which makes for arresting encounters with strangers who begin to feel familiar. The combination of colors — alert yellows, calm browns, assertive blues — and stylized features makes the portraits very intuitively legible. One quickly gains a sense of Ligterink’s subjects, as if she had introduced them to the viewer in person.

The Rhythm of Color
Reception: Thursday September 15, 2011 6-8 PM
Exhibition Dates: 9/13/2011 - 10/4/2011

Invitation to Mireille Ligterink's exhibition

View Mireille Ligterink's art for sale on Art-Mine.com

Bart Acrylic on Canvas 24" x 24" $2250 Bart Acrylic on Canvas 24" x 24" $2250	Godfried Acrylic on Canvas 24" x 24" $2250 Godfried Acrylic on Canvas 24" x 24" $2250
Ralph Acrylic on Canvas 24" x 24" $2250 Ralph Acrylic on Canvas 24" x 24" $2250	Marga Acrylic on Canvas 24" x 24" $2250 Marga Acrylic on Canvas 24" x 24" $2250
Theo Acrylic on Canvas 24" x 24" $2250 Theo Acrylic on Canvas 24" x 24" $2250	Wim Acrylic on Canvas 24" x 24" $2250 Wim Acrylic on Canvas 24" x 24" $2250
NY Firefighter Acrylic on Canvas 24" x 24" $2250 NY Firefighter Acrylic on Canvas 24" x 24" $2250	Het Diagram Acrylic on Canvas 24" x 24" $2250 Het Diagram Acrylic on Canvas 24" x 24" $2250
Statue of Liberty Acrylic on Canvas 24" x 24" $2250 Statue of Liberty Acrylic on Canvas 24" x 24" $2250