Dürst Britt & Mayhew

For her recent series of large scale paintings Wieske Wester found inspiration in George Orwell’s dystopian books and essays. Instead of directly referencing for example the role of certain animals in Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm’, in which, once in power, they suppress and exploit other animals, she searched for their vulnerability. In that sense her works can be considered portraits that do not necessarily look like the portrayed, but offer an ambiguity, layers of interpretation, characteristics that have to be discovered slowly by ‘reading’ between the lines.

Wieske Wester (1985, NL) obtained her BFA from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, after which she was selected for a two-year residency at De Ateliers in Amsterdam. In 2015 she graduated from the HISK in Ghent. Her work has been shown internationally at various venues such as White Crypt in London and the 6th Moscow Biennale for Art. Recent projects include group exhibitions at Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, the Gorcums Museum in Gorinchem, and CODA Museum in Apeldoorn. Wester’s work is held in private and public collections, including LAM in Lisse, Rabobank Collection, Ahold collection, and the Moraes Barbosa collection in Brazil. In 2020 she was awarded the Mondriaan Fund’s Stipendium for Established Artists.