Anna van den Hoevel
Abstract Landscape Painting, Travel and Perception
by Alexa Bouhelier-Ruelle
For Anna van den Hoevel, landscape is never still. It is not something to be observed from a distance or captured in a fixed moment—it is something that shifts, dissolves, and reforms through movement, memory, and perception. Her work exists in that in-between space, where geography fades and something more internal begins to take shape.
Having lived and worked across vastly different environments—from the Alps to the Mediterranean—van den Hoevel has developed a fluid understanding of place. Travel, for her, is not about arriving somewhere, but about witnessing transformation. “Movement has dissolved the idea of landscape as something fixed for me,” she explains. What once might have been perceived as stable terrain now reveals itself as something far more fragile—continuously reshaped by light, atmosphere, and human presence. “Landscape becomes an experience of change rather than a description of place.”
“The moment I perceive a place, it is already filtered through my body, my memories, my emotions...”
This sense of instability carries through her paintings, where physical locations are translated into emotional and psychological terrains. The shift from external to internal happens almost instantly. “The moment I perceive a place, it is already filtered through my body, my memories, my emotions,” she says. What remains is not the landscape itself, but its residue—its rhythm, its tension, its silence.
Working often from an aerial or abstracted perspective, van den Hoevel removes the viewer from any fixed point of reference. There is no horizon to anchor the gaze, no hierarchy between foreground and background. Instead, the image opens into something more fluid. “From above, hierarchies dissolve… boundaries become ambiguous,” she notes. This distance, rather than creating detachment, invites a different kind of intimacy—one that draws the viewer deeper into the perceptual field rather than holding them at its edge.
Material plays an equally vital role in this process. Her use of earth, pigments, and reused varnish introduces a tactile dimension that mirrors the very transformations she explores conceptually. These materials are not passive tools, but active participants in the work. “Material is never neutral in my work; it carries its own presence, its own memory,” she explains. Often sourced from specific locations, they act as traces—physical remnants of lived experience embedded within the surface of the painting. In this way, the work does not simply represent landscape; it becomes it.
There is a quiet tension that runs through her compositions—a balance between stillness and movement, control and release. This duality is not imposed, but emerges naturally through her process. “Stillness and movement coexist in the work much like they do in lived experience,” she says. Layers build, dissolve, and reconfigure, echoing the subtle forces that shape the environments she observes.
This relationship between place and process became especially tangible during her recent exhibition in Mexico City. Faced with unexpected logistical challenges, van den Hoevel was forced to create new work on-site, immersing herself fully in a new environment. The result was a deeper integration between context and creation. “Paintings are never isolated objects, but porous surfaces shaped by conditions, encounters, and lived realities,” she reflects. Here, the city itself—its light, atmosphere, and intensity—became inseparable from the work.
Ultimately, van den Hoevel’s practice resists documentation in the traditional sense. Her paintings do not seek to record where she has been, but rather how those places have been experienced. “My work is less a documentation of places and more a reflection of perception,” she explains. Each piece becomes a fragment—an imprint of sensation, memory, and shifting identity.
Looking ahead, her focus remains less on specific destinations and more on the conditions that define them. Transition, contrast, and instability continue to draw her forward. “I am drawn less to specific destinations and more to conditions of transition,” she says. In this way, the landscapes she explores are not only geographic, but perceptual—spaces where memory, anticipation, and experience overlap.
In van den Hoevel’s work, landscape is never a place you arrive at. It is something you move through, something you carry, and something that, inevitably, continues to change.
Words by Alexa Bouhelier-Ruelle
Photos provided by artist
