Annemarie Busschers

Annemarie Busschers


About

Annemarie Busschers’s portraits: Saying good-bye to the self

Annemarie Busschers (NL) was born in 1970, in southern, catholic 's-Hertogenbosch, Hieronymus Bosch’s hometown; she moved to the northern, protestant city of Groningen in the early 90s where she studied at the Minerva Fine Arts School; she never moved back down South. Her first body of work drinks directly from Bosch’s heritage; soon enough she found her own theme and language. In 2003 she makes Child I, work which signals the turning point in her oeuvre; in 2005 Chicken Pox is selected for the BP award of the London National Portrait Gallery, for which her work will be selected again in 2006 and 2008. Since then, her body of work consists of self-portraits and portraits she works on based on a photograph.

Her work belongs to the Dutch tradition of reproducing the subject matter with utter detail, as if we could touch with the eye the textures of the surfaces, the fabrics and the skin, etc Busschers’s work digs deeper into the meaning of contemporary individualism by treating the surfaces as landscapes with a right of their own. They are not psychological portraits, in the manner of Lucian Freud, her work is scientific, almost microscopic; she researches the surfaces of the body, of the imperfect, uneven skins, bound to illness, decay and ultimately death. They are paintings of hybrid beings where the subject is not only painted but also built by different layers of materials such as acrylic paint, pencil, pastel, epoxy, wood, wax, paper and felt. Portraits are therefore not only painted but also constructed by adding these layers onto the canvas. These layers help document the constant change we are subjected to, as if we were observing with the curiosity of a teenager who in front of the mirror stares with resentment, anger and fear the mutations the body goes through. Indeed, the individuals portrayed seem to be looking at themselves into augmented mirror.

Busschers raw realistic portraits and self-portraits mirror today’s self-obsession, the self-centeredness of the child, we haven’t outgrown and which is at the core of the contemporary consumerism society. Contemporary Consciousness Studies affirm that subjective feeling is an illusion. Psychologist Susan Brown affirms, that such thing as subjectivity does not exists; there is only experience. Yet, we seem to be in the middle of a hyper individualistic society that pushes us to believe we think, act and choose as individuals. Self-centeredness might not let us be aware of the fact that we are constructed by our environment, that the so-called right to privacy disappears in the name of social control and security. Hybrid objects appear when there is a new item that makes the previous one obsolete, think for example of the complexity of the typewriter when it was being left aside by computers. While reflecting individualism and self-obsession, Busschers’s hybrid beings might signal the end of the self, which is yet to come.






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2013-1
Jacob Witzenhausen
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self-portrait
self-portrait XV
tia
stroke
slain paint
work in progress for scope Miami
Art Rotterdam
seld-portrait
peter
Beyond grief
self-portrait

Events & Exhibitions

Exhibitions

2013 Jacoba Wijk gallery, Wehe den Hoorn 17 ma- 19 ap
2013 Scope New York 6 - 10 ma
2013 art wynwood, Miami 14-18 feb
2013 art at the warehouse, Rotterdam 5-10 feb
2013 Museum Belvedere, Heerenveen 'Reset' t/m 13 feb
2013 Galerie Bas, Sneek. Vilt 19 jan t/m 5 ma
2012 Context Miami 5-9 december
2012 Pan Amsterdam 18-25 november
2012 Art Southhampton, 26 july 2012 - 30 july
2012 Witzenhausen Gallery, Chelsea New York, 19 july- 23 aug, solo show
2012 Scope Basel 12-17 june
2012 Scope New York 7-11 maart
2012 Art Wynwood, Miami 16-20 febr.
2112 Raw Rotterdam, Rotterdam 8-12 febr
2011 Pan Amsterdam
2011 Scope Miami
2011 ING 'het liefdevolle oog' Henriette Polak Museum, Zutphen
2011 Scope Basel
2011 Witzenhausen gallery, Chelsea NYC
2011 Scope New York
2011 10-13 febr Art Rotterdam
2011 Art Palm Beach, Florida 20 - 24 jan
2010 Scope Miami Nov30-dec5
2010 Pan Amsterdam Nov20- nov28
2010 Scope Basel
2010 Art Amsterdam
2010 Dutch art now, New York
2010 Museum de Fundatie
2009 'Conceptual Realism' A selection from the ING Collection, Kunsthal 52,Den Helder
2009 Art Amsterdam
2009 BP Award, Aberdeen Art Gallery
2008 BP Award, Wolverhampton Gallery
2008 Bp Award, National Portrait Gallery
2008 Art Amsterdam
2008 ING Realismo Olandese. Palazzo Leone da Perego, Legnano-Milano, Italy
2008 Zeeuws Maritiem MuZEEum Vlissingen. ING collection.
2007 Art Amsterdam
2007 J.K. Egbertsprize. Pictura, Groningen
2007 Museum de Buitenplaats, Eelde
2007 Royal West of England Academy, Bristol
2007 Kunsthal, 'Leve de Schilderkunst! Terug naar de figuur' Rotterdam
2007 Aberdeen Art Gallery
2006 Gorcums Museum 'De magie van het Realisme'8
2006 National Portrait Gallery, London
2006 Art Amsterdam
2006 150th Anniversary Portrait Gala, National Portrait Gallery, London
2006 Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh
2005 Sunderland Museum and Winter Gardens
2005 National Portrait Gallery, London
2005 'Painted Reality'National Museum Stettin, Poland
2004'Painted Reality'National Museum Krakau, Poland
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