Peeters asked Roosen. Roosen said yes.

Jacqueline Peeters, paintings
Maria Roosen, sculptures

Jacqueline Peeters, Exhibition, circa 1995. Oil and paper on canvas. 200 x 180cm.

Gerhard Hofland is pleased to present a duo exhibition featuring recent paintings by Jacqueline Peeters and sculptures by Maria Roosen. Both artists share an interest in transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary, and the extraordinary into the ordinary. Rather than being strictly thematic, the exhibition allows unexpected and compelling combinations to emerge from contrasts and oppositions. The strength of the works lies in their persistent objecthood: they originate from everyday objects, transform into art, yet continue to assert their tangible presence as things.

In her recent series of paintings, Jacqueline Peeters explores feelings of love and loss. A dog with white and black-blue patches can be seen sitting or lying on a dark purple deathbed. The dog appears to be clinging to a body, recognisable only by its horizontal shape or pointed feet. Even the paint itself seems to cling and stick. In Dog / Stretcher, Peeters transforms a love bed into a deathbed. The previous title remains visible, written on wooden strips attached to the top of the painting: Lovelorn / Sommer.

The horizontal forms in these recent paintings evoke catafalques, hearses, deathbeds, love beds, or landscapes in which loved ones may rest. What remains: possessions, souvenirs, the hollow in a pillow left by the weight of a head, the memory of small feet in Christmas socks, a stuffed dog resting on violet cloth.

Jacqueline Peeters (1961, lives and works in Geraardsbergen, Belgium) studied at the Academy of Art in Tilburg and was a resident at Ateliers ’63 in Haarlem (now De Ateliers, Amsterdam) from 1984 to 1986. In 1987 she received the Royal Award for Modern Painting. She has had solo exhibitions at Motta Art Books, Eindhoven (1991); Kabinett, Bern (1998); Rhok, Brussels (Ballad of Supply and Demand, 1999); Zazà Ramen, Milan (Unsold Paintings, 2020); Gerhard Hofland, Amsterdam (Eat The Heart Gently, 2022); Loods 12, Wetteren (Landmark Paintings and Rarely Shown Drawings, 2023); Annie Gentils Gallery, Antwerp (2023) and PARK Platform for Visual Arts, Tilburg (Underpaintings & Overpaintings, 2025).

Maria Roosen has been creating sculptures, drawings, watercolours, and installations in a variety of materials — including glass, wool, and wood — since the early 1980s. Collaboration is a key element in her practice, and she has frequently worked with skilled artisans. The making process unfolds as an ongoing dialogue: with others and their craft, with the material itself, and with the context and space in which the work is situated. At the same time, she considers it essential to remain directly involved in the process. As Roosen has noted, the act of making is a continual source of learning and inspiration, allowing unexpected forms and ideas to emerge that could never be fully anticipated in advance. For her, craftsmanship and the artisanal dimension are just as important as the final result.

Roosen strives for clear, simple, and powerful imagery. She regards imagination as fundamental; her works often function as metaphors or parallel narratives. While she frequently draws on elements from reality, she reimagines them in different materials, scales, contexts — or a combination of these — thereby allowing new meanings to emerge. It is essential that her work remains open to multiple interpretations.

Maria Roosen (1957, lives and works in Arnhem) studied at the Arnhem Academy of Art and Design has had solo exhibitions at, among others, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam; Vleeshal, Middelburg; Groninger Museum, Groningen; Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle; and Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort. Her work has also been featured in historical exhibitions such as This is the Show and the Show is Many Things, Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, Ghent (1994).

21/02/26 – 28/3/26