Discover the contemporary work of MARLEEN MELENS

ORIGIN:

Artist of Belgian Flemish origin (Born in Mortsel region of Antwerp) and permanently settled in France since 1981, then naturalized French in 2000.

 Née  on 04/11/1958 at Mortsel, Marleen is the eldest daughter of Théo Melens, Belgian ceramic artist. 

Marleen has three children, three girls.

STATUS : since 1981 successively Free artist -  House of artists - Self-entrepreneur.

ARTISTIC TRAINING  :

License: NATIONAL SUPERIOR SCHOOL OF DECORATIVE ARTS - St Lucas à; Antwerp. Applied Graphic Arts Section: engraving, screen printing, offset, linocut. In France: free student AVIGNON Academy of Fine Arts, screen printing section.

CAREER:

NUMEROUS personal and group EXHIBITIONS.

 TEACHING/CULTURAL EVENTS - THERAPEUTIC WORKSHOPS  for more than 40 years in many different social cultural environments and all ages.   

OTHER PROFILE

 Healer (birth gift). 

Numerous volunteers in local cultural associations of Nièvre (artisans-artists) and Presidency of the Festival " Les Petites Reveries" à Brinon sur Beuvron for the first 5 years.

Theater (Vaucluse) - Improvisation matches (with Jean Bosjko) - Choir (with Viviane Willaume).

PROFILE  ARTISTIC

Versatile Artist- Both in the choice of techniques used and in the choice and interpretation of subjects. Life is in  perpetual movement, a coming and going of events and feelings that follow one another, intersect and their emotions and subjects inspire him.  The different periods of his life have been translated into English. each time in a pictorial way and different way of working. This site reflects only a very small part of its production and style in constant evolution since 1981 because everything is in motion. It is therefore  inconceivable for Marleen to create a life with the same pictorial style. Whether emotional or spiritual or visual. From hesitant researcher to impulsiveness passionelle, expressionism   interiority and the privacy of spirituality. Hard lines full of raw material. a fluid and much more stripped-down style. It goes from an expression to an expression. the other such as the events and emotions of his life which is far from stable. Ways, materials and techniques of working followed one another. Everything is linked. This site only shows some works from recent years and still evolving. And does not reflect 40 years of career. We can observe a certain tendency towards lyrical abstraction in certain works represented, but in the together she likes to keep a link with a form of figuration. Often between real and unreal, like an escape. Marleen likes to create emotion, reflection, contemplation, opening a painting to its fullest extent. which everyone can identify with. his way, which invites you to dream. Color is a primordial element in his everyday life and therefore also in his pictorial expression.

Abstract art itself is not his source of inspiration.

His favorite techniques, subjects: drawing, watercolor painting. oil, dry pastel, watercolor - mixed gouache as a graphic touch, linocut, engraving, modeling and decoration on stoneware.

Marleen is not a pastelist, watercolorist, engraver, painter, strictly speaking. She just likes to juggle with materials and techniques.

* APPRECIATION OF GERTURDE DODART  (President - Artistic and cultural director of HOSTELLERIE DE LA TOUR - Organizer of Nature en Livres in Monceaux le Comte).

" Marleen has been exhibiting for a long time, in her own places, or as part of convivial and friendly invitations, in Belgium or elsewhere. This is how his most recent works arrive for the first time at the Maison de l’Hostellerie de la Tour, during the Nature en Livres festival.

His paintings are made on large formats, more recently, they tend towards abstraction but remain anchored in a concrete form, each person sees in it the reflection of their own inspirations.