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Booth #125. Amo a la reina
Artist statement
By Raquel van Haver
Raquel’s art works are energetic dreamscapes; opening small windows to scenes of quotidian life. Her craft delicately portrays her intimate circle, placing familiar faces in novel surroundings in order to delve into the exploration of global connectivity where migration, cultura... more >> Amo a la reina will present the status of Colombian woman, female social leaders, migration and gender stories.
Artist statement
By Raquel van Haver
Raquel’s art works are energetic dreamscapes; opening small windows to scenes of quotidian life. Her craft delicately portrays her intimate circle, placing familiar faces in novel surroundings in order to delve into the exploration of global connectivity where migration, cultural history, and habits play a big role in determining the similarities and differences of human existence.
Working mainly on burlap, combining oil paint with coal, paper and beads to inspire heavily textured compositions, Raquel’s works explore color, light, identity, spirituality, urbanism transnationality and draws from the depth of personal encounters within her original community in the diaspora. Her works are often monumental in scale, at times ominous and colorful, they continue to negotiate boundaries between alienation and recognition.
Her latest collection is an investigation of her own past and the depth of feminism submerged in her historical identity.
Biography:
Van Haver refers to her work as loud and spiritual paintings. Paintings who you can refer to as dreamscapes of collages that can be seen as small windows to scenes from everyday life. Paintings that sympathetically portray people in and around her surroundings. Placing friends and familiar faces in new surroundings researching connections, similarities and differences all across the interconnected world where migration and history in culture and habits do play a big roll. Drawing from her own references and stories that haven’t been told yet. She works on burlap, combining oil paint, charcoal, resin, hair, paper, tar and ash in heavily textured compositions. The paintings explore colours, light, identity, meditation, presentation, spirituality, urbanism and the diaspora and drawing from African, Western, Caribbean and Latin American cultures within her community in the South- East of Amsterdam, Netherlands. More recently she has spent long periods abroad gathering source material in both West Africa and South America. Her works are often monumental in scale, at times
dark and ominous, colourful and energetic and continue to negotiate boundaries between alienation and recognition.
Van Haver was born in 1989 in Bogota, Columbia. She lives and works in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Solo exhibitions include ‘Spirits of the Soil’ at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, November 2018 – April 2019. Her work has also been exhibited at the Dordrecht’s Museum, Netherlands, Lagos photo festival Nigeria and BOZAR Centre For Fine Art Brussels. She recently won the prestigious Dutch Royal Prize for Painting. And in 20219 she was awarded with the Amsterdam award. Van Haver graduated from the HKU, Fine Arts, Utrecht, in 2012. In 2019 she was awarded with the Amsterdam award. A prestigious award for talented locals.
Her last research called Amo a la Reina were the artist is research in her own past and the status of female social leaders in the Colombian regions where she is using the tool of art to connect people. Where she investigates the importance of womanhood. Within her own past, her fantasy and the reality of the social leaders in the Colombian regions. Because she says: connecting people in daily life is really important. Something so small can move mountains.
