Artospective: Contemporary Artist Marleen Pauwels from Spain.

Watching The Watching.

An Interview with Marleen Pauwels.

Who and where are you from?

My name is Marleen Pauwels I am a Belgian contemporary artist based in Spain. I studied life drawing at Constantin Meunier in Brussels, graphic design at the Royal Academy of Fine Art in Dendermonde and Etching at the Academy of Fine Arts in Aalst.

How you got into this?

My parents were artcollectors, I have been surrounded by art since childhood and I always felt the urge to express myself through performing or drawing.

What is your driving force?

Just letting myself loose in any kind of creation/expression has been a driving force throughout my life.

What kind of work you do and why?

The human figure is a constant presence in my work emerging from my fascination with the fragility of the human condition. My work is centered around silence, desolation and surviving being alone, no matter how surrounded we are. My figures reflect in their nude almost transparent bodies a feeling of isolation, but also a strength and power to go back to the essence of what we are. I confirm this statement by putting them in empty abandoned spaces away from any unnecessary adornments.

My current paintings feature either extremely elongated or very small, cartoon like figures in a minimalist environment. In one way, I am showing something very recognizable but by playing with scale I want to provoke a kind of anarchy in the image.

My canvas’ are wooden blocks, built upon with newsprint, sand and oil paints. each one a commentary, many with imbedded written, often ambiguous or challenging, thoughts. The titles and the subjects themselves a comment on social attitudes.

Tell us more about your thought process.

Over the years my style has evolved using various media including etching, drawing, collage and oil paint. My palette is very restrained, I want to create an atmosphere in my work, and too much bright colors would create a language that’s not useful to me. The ‘wall’ often figures as the background of my images, always leaving a door or window open inviting the viewer to look beyond the first appearance. Once my foundation has been established, I draw my figures. The juxtaposition of these figures within the environment becomes my statement. I know my work is finished when it moves me in every way.

Please share with us the one modern artist whose work you find Interesting and why?

The work of Sophie Jodoin is fascinating me, her work is although very different than mine, in a way similar because she is also depicting in her own very distinctive style the fragility of the human condition.