Marcelle Hanselaar
b1945

Originally from the Netherlands, Marcelle Hanselaar is a London-based narrative oil painter and etcher.

She has led a peripatetic life of journeying adventure and (self) discovery prior to settling down to an unorthodox artist career that has moved from abstraction to unsettling figuration. Primarily self-taught, her work does not sit easily within current art movements or trends; nor does it ask politely to be viewed. They relate to the world that she lives in and reflect her responses to stories heard and read. The works, in spite of their outspoken creator, do not proffer easy answers or solutions; instead they prompt questions. Whilst they may start a certain story, image or thought, her creations favour the universal over the specific, wary of simple explanation or narrow chronology.

Work in collections:
The British Museum; Victoria & Albert Museum; V&A National Art Library; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge; The Metropolitan Museum, New York; Smith College Museum, USA; Museum de Reede, Antwerp, Be; The Whitworth, Manchester; The Holburne Museum, Bath; University of Aberystwyth, Wales.

“The Invitation plays on the age old theme of sex and death. An orgasm is called "Le petit mort" because the sensed danger of the completely losing yourself to some other is similar to what death means to us. In my image however I made this encounter more playful, it’s an invitation to be free, ignoring the consequences. The monkey is a symbol of lust and recklessness in reference to 17th century Dutch genre paintings.”
Marcelle Hanselaar