Nanouk Weijnen

Nanouk's work is all about the emotion an animal evokes. Her animals, which seem to step right out of the canvas, are painted as individuals with human expressions and recognisable traits. This humanisation of animals represents Nanouk's social vision. Nanouk: Man no longer allows the animal to be an animal. Animals have been completely domesticated and are often used as merchandise in a ruthless way. The distance between humans and animals seems greater than ever."

In terms of her use of light, Nanouk paints in the tradition of the old masters. She works a lot with oil paint, layer upon layer, giving her work a lot of depth. After the first undercoat of acrylic paint, Nanouk applies different types of media that start to react with each other. This technique creates the stain patterns that are so characteristic of the backgrounds in her portraits.