Interwoven Identities 5

This artwork is an abstract expression of van den hooven’s exploration of the human condition in the modern world. Using a mixed media style in watercolour and wax pencil, van den hooven has created a vibrant and dynamic composition that captures the complexity and diversity of human experiences.

The overlapping faces and eyes represent the multiple perspectives and identities that shape our reality, as well as the challenges of finding our own voice and place in society. Through this piece, van den hooven invites you, the viewer, to reflect on your own sense of self and belonging in a chaotic and ever-changing world.

Here the artist has chosen a warm and rich color palette to contrast with the light gray background, suggesting a sense of passion, energy, and resilience in the face of adversity.

This artwork features several real vermillion (cinnabar) rouge spots. This is a special historical pigment which exhibits a much nicer hue without being too intense or overpowering.

This horizontal panoramic watercolour abstract portrait is a continuation of a series on internal human organs. Other artworks in this series include inanimate objects, but this artwork only facial features and a limited number of organs, because it is essentially a portrait.

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van den hooven is an emerging Australian abstract cubist artist whose style is instantly recognisable for its quintessential features: bold lines, consistent colour palette and his symbolic logo-like depiction of facial features, bodily organs and other familiar objects.

His compositions are intentionally cluttered and contradictory, reflecting the chaos of modern life through a unique visual language that fuses the internal with the external, the animate with the inanimate, the natural with the technological.

Born into a lineage steeped in creativity, van den hooven’s artistic roots trace back to his grandfather Abraham Leendert van den Hooven, a Dutch sailor-turned-self-taught artist who settled in Australia in the late 1950s. His mother, Margarita Rosa, also pursued fine art, nurturing a household where creativity could flourish.

Coming from a science research background, van den hooven’s own journey into art was reignited after completing diplomas in graphic design (2016) and illustration (2018).

His work often explores themes of consumption, identity, internal conflict using familiar and quintessential objects—facial features, organs, androids, tentacles, surveillance cameras, crustaceans, fish, and more—to challenge viewers’ perceptions of necessity versus excess.

Looking forward, van den hooven is holding his inaugural solo art exhibition at the Clyde Gallery, Bay Pavilions Art+Aquatic centre, Batemans Bay, in August 2025.