THE HAGUE.- Museum Beelden aan Zee in Scheveningen (The Hague) presents a retrospective of Dutch visual artist Mart Visser from 9 July until 2 October 2022. The museum shows a selection of more than a hundred sculptures and eighty reliefs, paintings and installations, with a diversity of abstract heads and faces. At the opening of the dynamic exhibition Sculptures, Mart launches a first art book with an impression of his three studios and way of working.
Although Mart Visser is mainly known for his work as a fashion designer, he has also been a passionate and multidisciplinary artist for years. He creates sculptures and paintings intuitively and experiments with sizes and use of materials. As with his modernist fashion design, structure, relief, texture and technique enhance the design.
The starting point for Mart’s visual art is a personal empathy and the search for common ground with other art that he admires or intrigues him. In addition, it is also a quest for the human form, inner integrity or authenticity. Each work is a reflection of encounters. His art is an ode to creation.
The artist makes sculptures of heavy materials, raw woods, stones and iron, with a love for old, weathered materials. He stacks, models with the weight and forms fascinating objects. These works of art are then grouped with a musical feeling, in a rhythm, as an installation.
As long as Mart Visser can hold a pencil or brush, he has been drawing heads. The expression of the face in all its forms is what fascinates him. His painted heads and tronies, with a strong signature, are characterized by a rough and abstract design, with a colour palette of midnight blue, gradations in black/white/grey, dark orange, ocher and a parade of greyed tones.
Mart Visser (1968) graduated from the Fashion Academy Montaigne. In 1992 he made his debut with a first Haute Couture collection and opened a salon in Amsterdam in 1995. The fashion designer introduces a ready-to-wear line in 2003. Since 2009 he is also a versatile visual artist. Besides exhibitions in Museum Jan van der Togt in Amstelveen (2014) and Museum aan het Vrijthof in Maastricht (2016), his autonomous Artwork has been presented at international art fairs and exhibitions in galleries and interior showrooms, and included in many private collections.
Museum Beelden aan Zee is a hidden treasure in the dunes of The Hague and is the only museum in the Netherlands that focuses exclusively on international, modern and contemporary sculpture. The inspiring, shell-shaped museum building was designed by architect Wim Quist.
