A staccato of gestural mark-making sweeps across large-scaled canvases composed by Marion Therese Kunstenaar, a Dutch artist living and working in Israel. In her studio, Kunstenaar orchestrates a moving series of lyrical and moody abstractions smoothly synthesizing warm, cool, bright and muted pigments in each artwork. Her visceral connection to music and Jewish philosophy appears to infuse the melody of visual scores with spirited rhythm.
Energetic experimentation with acrylic paint, and the latitude it gives her to create non-objective artwork, liberate Kunstenaar’s process. Reminiscent of early 20th century abstract expressionists, and the German artist Gerhard Richter, Kunstenaar embraces a spontaneity informed by emotional imprinting. Her narrative is composed of loss, oppression, joy, and freedom as a Holocaust survivor from The Netherlands and an immigrant to the Jewish homeland in Israel. Kunstenaar aims to uncover experiences of love and beauty and visually translate them into a story without borders. Through dynamic color and movement, she emancipates a flow of sounds and sensations encouraging her viewer to hear their voice stirred by painterly creativity.