About the Artist
Eveline lived for over 30 years on Mombasa’s south coast, surrounded by Kenya’s natural splendour, captivating colours and intense light. Inspired by Africa’s wild beauty, she draws and paints its wild life, faces and flowers.
Africa’s space and natural variety inviting creativity, she also designs colourful gardens and interiors.
When working on portraits of her African models, Eveline finds the sparkle in their eyes that makes every day of life in Africa shine. Her most striking portraits are those of African women gazing mysteriously through their cloths and old African men, their faces covered in wrinkles, their eyes having lost their shine but not their sparkle.
For the artist, nature’s most magnificent work of art is the cat, especially Africa’s big cats. She is impressed with their power and elegance while awed by the look in their eyes. Lions and leopards are her favourite wild life subjects.
After having lived for over a year on the exotic island of Zanzibar, Eveline nowadays spends time on both the north and south coast of Mombasa.
Eveline was born in the Hague. After having studied the art of painting under Dutch artist Marion van Nieuwpoort, well known in the Netherlands for her expressive explosions of colour and movement, Eveline had the privilige to take part in international master classes by Poen de Wijs, Holland’s modern master of realism.
The artist uses acrylics for her paintings, soft pastel crayons for drawings. She likes to combine contrasting techniques, often resulting in realistically depicted subjects against an almost abstract, colourful background filled with movement.
Eveline has exhibited her work in Kenya and the Netherlands. Her works of art are to be found in private collections all over the world.
She had a solo exhibition in 2013 at the United Nations in Nairobi and this year another solo exhibition at the Tamarind in Mombasa.
Mentor: POEN DE WIJS
EVELINE HASSELMAN has been a student of the well-known Dutch artist couple POEN DE WIJS and MARION VAN NIEUWPOORT since the beginning of the 90′s, both in Kenya and the Netherlands. Marion taught her how to paint spontaneously and expressively, using explosive colours and working with pastel and watercolours. Poen, on the contrary, is a fully accomplished realistic painter. During his master classes in his studio in the Hague, he taught Eveline how to paint layer over layer, a century old technique, translated into acrylic.
Both Marion van Nieuwpoort and Poen de Wijs graduated from the ROYAL ACADEMY OF ART in the Hague and have exhibited their work all over the world. Numerous articles, documentaries and books about their work have been published over the years, amongst which 15 digital i-books available from the APPLE iBOOK STORE. Marion died at the age of 58 in 2008. Poen was knighted in 2013 for his life’s work as an artist and teacher.