” Wildly feminine, cheerful, seductive and wicked at the same time. Nimbly hopping between art, fashion and illustration, the English multidisciplinary artist Julie Verhoeven (1969) has built up quite a reputation for herself over the past few years.
Her work adorns fabrics from Versace and accessories from Mulberry. It makes reference to surrealism and Schiele, to name but a few influences. And although her surname perhaps suggests otherwise, Verhoeven is English in heart and soul, almost to the point of eccentricity.
As from November 13th, Julie will be bending MU totally to her will, transforming De Witte Dame into a feminine cross between a latex cabinet of curiosities, a Victorian boudoir and a stencilled punk bunker.
The core of Verhoeven’s work are her drawings. Not just sensual and beautiful, but also tragic femmes fatales populate her creative world. Some display a hint of Beardsley, while others have a blatant Vogue stare or a constructivist physique.
Allusions tumble over one another, easy enough to find for those who care to look. Blaring pop music and fashion, paintings and interiors, hairstyles and films, anything can nourish Verhoeven in her search for inspiration.
Verhoeven likes her women to humorously meddle with the boundaries of aesthetics, because underneath, destruction grows rampant. With a mischievous pen and a lick of paint, she reveals the deeper layers in a raw manner, in the best traditions of punk. ”
On the occasion of the exhibition, MU will publish ‘A Bit of Rough’, a book dedicated to the work of Julie Verhoeven. This publication includes an essay by critic Francesca Gavin.
Emmasingel 20 – de witte dame
NL – 5611 AZ Eindhoven
+31 (0) 40 296 1663
www.mu.nl – mu@mu.nl
