Mari STOEL

Born in 1978, Mari Stoel received his MFA from St. Joost School of Fine Arts in Den Bosch. A Gerrit van Houten prizewinner in 2017 and Buning Brongers prizewinner in 2010, Stoel has shown his work throughout the Netherlands, as well as in the U.S., the U.K and China. In 2013 he was one of the artists nominated for the Dutch Royal Prize for Painting. His work is to be found in several private collections.

Stoel’s work is known for his thoughtful yet spontaneous and playful approach towards his artistry and surroundings. He uses several media including painting, sculpture, installation, photography and textiles. For him, foolishness plays a special role in our lives and we must not take it too seriously, otherwise it may be unbearable. Because of that, to see things with irony sometimes is important.However, irony may not take too great a part in living. When we apply irony to everything in life and work there is the danger of losing honesty and misleading ourselves as to how things truly are. Luckily Stoel saw that coming and therefore chose to paint landscapes. Landscape has no mask, no other meaning than being what it is. He was happy not always having to be funny. It’s a sincere and honest way of seeing and dealing with things. This also helped him to take life more seriously.

From 2005, when Mari Stoel was in his 20s, he decided to change course from the conceptual approach, for which he’s still well known, and started to dedicate his artistry fully to painting. He chooses to paint (en plein air) landscapes, something he always felt attracted to, the most neutral subject and always around us. In contrast with making a film, a photo, an installation or sculpture, which take a very long time and huge energy of thinking, re-thinking and making, Stoel looked for a quick result and physical kind of energy. Feeling the sunburn and sweat, smelling the paint and turpentine, the painter was shaking because of the physical effort he was putting in. After finally finding his spot, he had to find an inner peace and rest in order to start painting. A bit like van Gogh did.

In several periods of time, Stoel paints not only what he sees but also his passion and personal touch for creating tension and atmosphere make it a tangible experience. Mari Stoel’s work is endowed with a strong personal touch, showing a close relationship with the expressionist painters of the past through a direct and expressive way of painting, as well as the recognizability of the subject.

Over time, Mari keeps returning to what he calls the source, a place where there are no concepts, only his surroundings and the direct way of experiencing them. His works exude a great naturalness due to the direct, expressive way of painting and certainly also due to the recognizability of the subjects. Even more in his devotion than in his painting style he shows kinship with expressionists of the past.

The paintings and pastels exhibited in Bug 2 were made over a period of 15 years. It’s a small but representative selection that gives an image of the process Stoel was going through. They show his development which gradually moves towards abstraction and an expressive yet essential use of color field. Most paintings were made in the Vondelpark, a park that is very close to where he lived in Amsterdam for 15 years. He knows every tree and corner of this park, around which he used to walk almost every day.

Stoel was born in Haarlem and grew up in Friesland, in the countryside of north Netherlands. His father and younger brother are artists too. He always had a love – hate relationship with painting. He wanted to relate to his father through painting, to find his own style, to experience what it is, to undergo it, and to enjoy it.