Mental Expenditure

"Mental Expenditure" invites the viewer into a fluid, subconscious realm shaped by complex external factors. The external influences the internal; the internal influences the external.

This work merges surrealism with biomorphic abstraction. The painting unfolds as a dynamic interplay of curved and angular lines, weaving together organic shapes that pulse with movement. The repeated eye motif may evoke themes of perception, surveillance, or the inner gaze.

A textured gray ground provides depth, allowing vibrant elements to hover above subtle tonal variations. Each element is sharply defined with black outlines, lending visual tension to the otherwise soft, mutable spaces. Muted greys and browns interweave with electrifying bursts of cadmium red, erbium pink, cobalt turquoise, and emerald green.

The contrasting hues generate a compelling rhythm, suggesting emotional movement—perhaps memory, intuition, or identity—surfacing from below. The color transitions move us through muted stillness into moments of inner reflection, introspection.

This new piece from the July 2025 collection showcases the artist's ability to blend spontaneity with intentional design, encouraging viewers to interpret its meaning through their own subjective lens.

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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.