Martine Johanna

Lives and works in Zetten, NL

Martine Johanna is an artist known for her vivid paintings with both figurative and abstract elements. Her autobiographical works, seemingly lighthearted, explore the duality between youthful naivety and anxiety-riddled adulthood. The figures, fierce but fragile, crowd the compositions and occupy the majority of the space gazing distractedly into the beyond. Each of Johanna’s delicately rendered figures convey a sense of immersion within their own “internal psychic landscape.” The work is imbued with a mysterious narrative and sensation of knowing that each character in the work has a full and complex history that the viewer can never completely comprehend. The paintings have a signature prismatic palette, visually stimulating and playful while expressing an underlying sense of uncertainty and unrest. 

Martine Johanna has had international success exhibiting extensively in the Netherlands and abroad. Inspiration for her work include a mixture of childhood and autobiographical memories and experiences, documentaries on human nature, independent films and history. 

Martine Johanna studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Arnhem, obtaining a Bachelor and a Master degree.