Mai van Oers

Mai van Oers' (Uden, NL, 1953) oeuvre consists of drawings and paintings, not a special duo, until you see the works. It is a unusual combination of almost abstract paintings and often very realistic drawings. What they have in common is the resemblance to a sort of landscape and the perfect mastery of technique.

The paintings of Mai are worlds of their own, simultaneously recognizable and alienating. They balances on a thin line between figuration and abstraction. Mai uses a wide range of painting techniques. This can vary from delicately painted forms to raw brush strokes, like blobs of paint almost directly squirted from the tube onto the canvas that add sculptural elements to her work. Her paintings emerge slowly, during a process that grows towards a final result. It is a contemplative search for the right composition, colors and paint skin. Yet the labor intensity is not the first thing that stands out in the paintings. They are elegant images: it seems as if it was no effort at all to create them.

Her drawings, too, are worlds in which familiar elements together form an alienating image. Cathedrals, tombs, fairytale figures and animals live in environments full of structures that can sometimes be traced back to reality and sometimes follow their own logic. Mai starts her drawings without a preconceived plan, during the process references arise, such as her childhood with the nuns, art historical sources of inspiration are integrated, such as the Tres Riches Heures of the Duc de Berry, but also what influences her life at that moment finds a place on the paper.

Mai van Oers’ work is included in several corporate and museum collections, for example Kennedy van der Laan, Amsterdam Bouwfonds Kunstcollectie, Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Teylers Museum and Centraal Museum Utrecht, among others. In 2000 she was awarded the Jeanne Oosting Prijs voor de schilderkunst. For the last years Mai van Oers has worked with Galerie Rob de Vries in Haarlem and with Galerie Fleur & Wouter in Amsterdam.

Exhibitions & fairs with the gallery:
Castlemania
Art on Paper Brussels, 2022
Amsterdam Art Week 2022: Unfamiliair Passions
KunstRAI 2021
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