Maeve van Klaveren

°1977, The Netherlands
Lives and works in Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Maeve van Klaveren is a artist whose figurative work explores everyday life and emotions. Her art often begins from a small idea or mood, focusing on materiality and using watercolors and pastels to convey feelings like sadness, joy, love, and mortality. Personal experiences shape her pieces, which delve into themes of relationships, desire, and connection. Yet, van Klaveren invites viewers to interpret each work individually.

Van Klaveren describes her work as figurative drawings in which recognizable moments become dream-like. They incorporate elements of everyday life: gazing out of the window, being in nature, cats, vases with flowers, a basket of fruit or lying in bed. Touching on universal feelings such as connection, charity, vulnerability, security, hope, and physical presence, introspective figures often take centre stage, trying to exchange certain moods and feelings. Layers of pastel, pencil, watercolor and charcoal dissolve hard edges, creating a soft powdery, velvety language. The drawings often begin with a thought, memory or mood.