A brief introduction

Ineke Van der Wal is a visual artist, foremost a painter; her work explores the relationship of the inner self through a perception of the lived experience of her body, to time and memory, and a sense of place. The work further engages in a dialogue with poetry and found words, where paintings frequently develop in an abstracted engagement in series with material and gesture in a rhythmic and layered process. These interest in these subject matters have been of a consistent inspiration to her throughout her long working practise. The smaller physical scale of some of the recent paintings compel a close look, but  still hold the dynamics of much larger work. The proximity to a perception of a figure is still perceptible whilst emerging from a jagged ambiguous abstraction and a fearful point that the artist places figures in a fragmented interior with strength, decision, and dynamism.

I paint what I cannot see or grasp in an unseen reality. To engage in a painting process departing from the comfortable and known and being unafraid of failure or darkness. Trying to get a better understanding from a personal perspective. A deeper understanding gradually emerges. I was commissioned by the BEAF Festival for the exhibition 2021, Bournemouth for the project ‘Portraits of Self , Drawing Wall ‘a 11 meters long wall of charcoal drawings, with the central drawing made specifically on site.

Following new developments of work, I continuously find myself challenged in my painting process with an always critical view and perspective. The years filled by an extensive built-up knowledge of art history, the platform of visual arts and theories, all its multitude of engagements. Not to speak of the ever-changing possibilities of forms of expression.)