Discovering the street art vision of Raquel Van Haver
A portrait of inequality
Raquel van Haver (1989, Bogotá, Colombia) lives and works in Amsterdam. In 2012 she graduated from the HKU Fine Arts Department of Utrecht. Born in Colombia,Raquel, grew up in the Netherlands, she travels most of the year searching for communities whose stories are rarely told trough art. Nigeria, South Africa and Colombia, for instance, places where social life generally happens outdoors, in the street, dancing and helping each other.
The artist notice universal characteristics among these country, from Medellin to Lagos, streetscapes are dotted with the same plastic chairs, electric fan, soda cans, and not just objects, there are similarity regarding gesture, game and religion. Van Heren captures all these elements with the modern painter’s manner.
Her influences come from traditional paintings, (We do not sleep as we parade all trough th night”…., has similarity with da Vinci’s style) but also from contemporary art. She is using, Oil on burlap, cardboard, tar, plastic, charcoal, chalk, gel, resin, hair, posters, paper, beer caps, beads. For her talent she has got 3 nominations for the freedom Royal Award painting that won in 2018.
Stedelijk Museum
From the 25 Nov 2018 until 7 Apr 2019 at the Stedelijk Museum there are six galleries for the exhibition “Spirits of the Soil” by van Haver. For this occasion the artist has produced a new series of monumental paintings, you can see some of them in the article. Is Van Haver’s first solo exhibition at an Amsterdam museum.
At the museum, over Raquel, you can find many famous artworks. The collection comprises modern and contemporary art and design from the early 20th century up to the 21st century. It features artists such as Vincent van Gogh, Wassily Kandinsky, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, Jackson Pollock, Karel Appel, Andy Warhol, Willem de Kooning, Marlene Dumas, Lucio Fontana, and Gilbert & George.
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