With over 90k followers on Instagram, Dutch painter Martine Johanna is a force to be reckoned with. Known for her realistic style of portraiture painting (which, more often than not, has a surreal edge to it), her work has been showcased in multiple solo shows in the Netherlands, Europe, and the United States.
One feature that makes her paintings stand out is her unique choice of color. Her subjects (mostly women) have a certain sheen to them and they look as though they’re actually glowing from inside. This unique glow also adds a layer of uncanniness to her paintings, making her subjects both familiar and unfamiliar.
“Most of the characters are not airbrush perfect or standard but the color palette makes you feel that they are perfect, so any dark circles under the eyes or intense expressions do not feel negative,” Johanna explained in an interview with The HYDE Magazine.
“I don’t want them to fall flat or be just pretty,” she went on to say. “I want life in them and experiences because that is what makes people interesting, But whatever the viewer feels I feel is completely up to them, although a lot of people feel a connection to these paintings and see something of themselves in them. And it is women and men that feel that connection.”
According to Johanna, her paintings have an emotional quality to them, based on dreams, personal experiences, and personality conflicts between the authentic self, taught mannerism and projected morality. “The work is mostly autobiographic, so a lot of it deals with childhood memories, fascinations and that whole zone between being a kid and growing up and all the emotional turmoil that comes with it,” she notes.
