Full Circle

Artist Hanneke de Neve returns to her art school roots with abstract art.

By: Ilene Dube
   Gallery director C. J. Mugavero goes into the back room of Bordentown’s Artful Deposit and returns with a large black-and-white photo of a stunning blonde. "She looks like Faye Dunaway," says Ms. Mugavero. Or Christie Brinkley, back in the day.
   The subject is Hanneke de Neve, whose show, Departure, will hang on the walls here through March 31. Ms. Mugavero and Ms. de Neve are celebrating a 21-year relationship — that’s when the gallery began in its Allentown location, and that’s how long Ms. Mugavero has represented Ms. de Neve. Ms. Mugavero says she’s sold thousands of monoprints and paintings by the prolific artist.
   But back to the photo of the beauty queen — it was taken while Ms. de Neve was an art student in Holland in the mid-1960s. It may have been almost 40 years ago, but Ms. de Neve still conveys the same sophisticated glamour.
   It was actually Ms. Mugavero’s husband who titled this show Departure, because the abstract work it contains represents a change for the artist.
   It all started with circles, specifically, a circle Ms. de Neve painted in 1964 as her first assignment in art school. "We were to make our favorite form," she says with more than a trace of a Dutch accent. The watercolor, on display at the front of the gallery but absolutely not for sale, is titled "Blue Moon." On it the Hamilton resident has written, "There might not be much originality in my circle, however… For weeks now I have been seeing circles."
   This past summer, while Ms. de Neve’s 35-year-old son was serving in Iraq, she came full circle as circles began appearing on her canvases. The oil painter had previously done landscape and figurative work, but now it was coming out abstract.
   The first painting, titled "I Cry," expresses the anguish she felt "over this war and other wars and the other things going on in this world," she says. (Her son, Erik, it should be mentioned, has returned home safely.)
   Ms. de Neve is an admitted workaholic. While waiting for her oil paintings to dry, she’ll move along and work on monoprints, or perhaps in fiber arts, the medium she first became known for in this region. Her master’s degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Tilburg, The Netherlands, is in art history and fashion design, and she continues to teach fiber art at the YWCA Princeton. When her three sons were small, she handed the paints over to them and worked on applique designs on fabric. If there’s time left over in the day, she knits. For example, she would knit while her sons had their afternoon snacks and did homework. At her peak, Ms. de Neve knits a sweater or two in a week, and in the past has sold these at Crafters Marketplace in Princeton and other fairs.
   "At $300 a piece, I can’t afford to wear them myself," she says.
   In the back of the gallery are stacks and stacks of the figurative paintings, monoprints and collages Ms. de Neve developed a reputation for. The pretty faces and nice landscapes always sold well — some collectors bought as many as 25. There are so many figures, nude or clothed, with different personalities, one wonders how Ms. de Neve finds so many models to sit for her.
   "I don’t," she says. "I make them up."
   Sometimes she makes sketches of people while sitting at art shows, and these days she sketches her grandson, but says she worked from models for so many years, it’s easy to make them up.
   "She has avid, loyal collectors," says Ms. Mugavero, who jokes about how all the pieces were titled "Woman," "Couple" or "Untitled."
   Flipping through some of her older prints, Ms. de Neve admits her work is autobiographical, and reviewing these is like going through a diary. "C.J. has sold so many, I can stay alive on selling my artwork," she says.
   Last summer, Ms. de Neve was working on a monoprint of a figure, and when she wiped away some ink with a rag, she liked the way the figure looked with no features. "I don’t know what happened," she said, but from there, her work went completely abstract.
   When Ms. de Neve brought the new work to Ms. Mugavero, both agreed it was a refreshing change. And with abstraction came a whole new direction in titles: "Canticle," "Calypso," "Safe in My House," "Dream." It’s as if the dam to her soul burst open.
   "When you work on a show, it’s like a puzzle, and it comes together with the titles," says Ms. de Neve.
   There is a dominance of primary colors here, reds and blues, but Ms. de Neve says she always mixes her paints. "That is a lesson from art school."
   The cover piece for the exhibit, "Bravura," while an abstract formation made from circles, still looks, to this observer, like a figure, with a large, apricot-colored egg shape just where the head ought to be. Circles float over the head like a headdress, and a large red field becomes the robe draped over the figure. There appears to be a hand in the center, and a pile of yellow knitting on the figure’s lap.
   In "The Beginning," there is a sphere emerging, which looks simultaneously like a planet, or a baby’s head crowning during the birthing process. There are even forms that could be the mother’s thighs and belly.
   Ms. de Neve says she was not thinking of a specific portrait while painting these. "When I’m painting, it’s primitive, but I think of people all the time when I do these."
   After art school, Ms. de Neve taught high school students, but at 21 didn’t feel comfortable teaching 16-year-olds. She moved to this country in 1974 with her husband, settling in Hightstown where her three sons went to school. Her fabric compositions were hanging in the office of a Princeton doctor when Ms. Mugavero discovered them.
   In recent times, Ms. de Neve has had to cut back on knitting due to a repetitive stress twinge in her hands — "Knitting is therapeutic for the mind but not for the hands" — but she still has five knitting projects and four quilt projects going at any given time. "Painting is the real work," she says, "but to get to this, I first do monotypes. I need a long time to prepare. Painting is the scariest part, it’s serious."
   Once Ms. de Neve gets herself down to the basement, she’ll stay at least eight hours, lost in the world of painting and her mind. "It’s not like sewing where you can turn off the machine. The mental process is intense."
Departure, abstract paintings by Hanneke de Neve, is on view at The Artful Deposit, 201 Farnsworth Ave., Bordentown City, through March 31. Gallery hours: Wed. 1-6 p.m., Thurs.-Fri. 1-8 p.m., Sat. 1-6 p.m., Sun. 1-5 p.m. and by appointment. For information, call (609) 298-6970. On the Web: www.theartfuldeposit.com