A conversation with Nelleke

Hi Nelleke! How are you? Could you tell us a bit about yourself, who you are, where you’re based, and what you do?

Hi! My name is Nelleke van Lomwel, I’m an artist based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. My work spans across different disciplines — music, writing, photography, video and academic research — but I’m mostly known as a painter. I originally studied Advertising at the Willem de Kooning Academy, and it was only after graduating that I began painting. Alongside my work in the advertising industry, I felt the need to develop a more theoretical foundation, which led me to study sociology and eventually complete a Research Master in Artistic Research at the University of Amsterdam. Alongside my artistic practice, I now work as an editor and art director for a Dutch national broadcaster.

Your work feels very symbolic, with recurring figures, animals and almost archetypal scenes. How did this visual language develop?

I’ve always been drawn to religious imagery and ideas of the sacred, not religion in an institutional sense, but belief as something that deeply fascinates me. Questions around divinity, ritual, repetition and symbolism keep returning in my work. I’m interested in how the idea of sacredness can provide a sense of stability in an absurd, often unjust world. That process of meaning-making is really at the core of my practice. When observing that absurdity, there are always certain objects, words or patterns that seem to call for my attention. I’ve made it a rule to follow that pull, often guided by the question: what am I being asked to pay attention to? I’m fascinated by how symbols operate within belief systems, and how they help us construct meaning. In that sense, painting becomes a kind of spiritual practice for me, a way of engaging with the unknown. I’m not sure I believe in a God, but I’m also not convinced by a completely meaningless universe. My work tends to exist within that tension. By developing a recurring set of symbols, I’m able to work quite instinctively and at a certain speed. They function as a personal language ,allowing me to build images through repetition and variation, creating an ever-expanding narrative.

Do you draw from specific eras, stories or references?

I love browsing the book sections of thrift stores. In my studio, I have stacks of old image books, ranging from 18th-century silverware and archaeological findings to cookbooks from the 1970s. I use them as a way to explore what draws my attention.

 

Your use of colour feels very intentional. How do you approach colour when starting a new piece?

Haha, yes! Extremely intentional. Earlier this year I learned that I’m autistic, which in hindsight explains a lot about my relationship with colour. Instead of a train obsession, I was given a colour obsession, it’s my favourite topic. Colour is a powerful tool in how it activates memory, emotion and associations with both past and future. I spend a lot of time researching, mixing and thinking about colour. My underpaintings always start with a very specific shade of red, which I think of as the ‘blood’ of my subjects. It gives my figures a sense of aliveness that no other colour can achieve. When working with colour, I’m always looking for what animates, what creates a response. It often means I spend a lot of time reworking shades that might look identical to others, but feel completely different to me.

 

Are your works rooted in personal experience, or do they come from imagination?

A lot of my work is rooted in personal experience, particularly in my relationship to my body. I was born with a physical disability, and in 2021 my health declined significantly. I was very ill and mostly bedridden. With my heart not functioning properly and my joints constantly dislocating, my world became very small. With the limited energy I had, I returned to painting. What started as a way to process that period gradually became something else, a form of movement. I couldn’t move physically, but through painting I still felt able to experience life, to shift, to go somewhere else. I’m grateful to be mostly back on my feet now, but that principle has stayed with me. My work continues to be a space where I can move, change perspective and mentally travel beyond my physical body.

 

Painting; A place to land

 

We were really touched by your painting A Place to Land. Could you tell us more about the story or feeling behind this work?

It’s part of a larger series called Under the Same Sun, which explores the idea of oneness and the central role of the sun in our universe. During the process leading up to this piece, I was feeling quite ungrounded. When I feel that way, I like to imagine myself as something else, as a way to reflect on what qualities I might need to feel more anchored. For this painting, I explored the swan. It moves with the certainty that there will always be a place to land — a river, a lake, a body of water. That idea became a way to hold onto something.

 

How does it feel to be a painter?

Painting has allowed me to feel at home in the world. It teaches me everything I need to know about living. You see, this practice is nothing more than showing up and moving past discomfort. It asks you to diligently keep going, through all seasons of life. It’s a routine that becomes part of the mundane, like brushing your teeth; a ritual that stabilizes life. And then, every once in a while, you make a work that feels unexpectedly spacious, as if you’ve stretched something beyond what you thought was possible. And it feels grand.

This feeling is what makes me want to live forever. So I continue to show up and move past the discomfort, time and time again. 

Is there something you’re currently exploring or experimenting with that feels new?

Lately, I’ve been experimenting more with form, thinking about my paintings as objects with their own spatial presence, something that can exist beyond the canvas itself. I’m still discovering what shape that might eventually take, but recently I brought home a broken piece of plaster from a construction site near my studio. It’s irregular and fragmented, almost like a small ruin in itself. I’ve been drawn to the idea of painting on it, as if it were a remaining fragment of a fresco or part of an ancient structure that once existed.