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“For me, painting always begins in memory, but it never remains static. I work with impressions, places I’ve been, people I’ve met, and atmospheres I’ve felt. And these transform as they flow through my emotions and instincts. In this way, the painting is both a memory and a vision, the past that merges into the future”, says Anna van den Hoevel, a German artist who grew up between Menorca, the Austrian Alps, and Munich.
Her abstract painting is born precisely from this constant movement between experience and imagination, in a research that intertwines geography, nature, and the human condition.
In her works, the layers of materials—acrylics, recycled lacquers, mortar, earth—become living presences, not mere technical tools, but true co-authors capable of conveying memory and history. The canvases thus transform into emotional maps, interior topographies that represent the complexity of reality, never pure or intact, but always in dialogue with the human presence.
“For me, home is a state, not a fixed place. It is the moment when I feel a deep connection to a place, a person, or a culture. My paintings are an attempt to capture such moments of belonging or failure and inner turmoil”, adds the artist, emphasizing how the concept of belonging, for her, does not coincide with a physical location but with a feeling of connection.
This vision is confirmed by her constant travels, the aerial photographs that often inspire her compositions, and her ability to transform the traveler’s gaze into a pictorial language.
With upcoming exhibitions with Alday Hunken Gallery, including the Atlanta Art Fair, SCOPE Miami, and the 2026 Venice Biennale, Anna van den Hoevel’s work continues to present itself as a territory of exploration, where memory, matter, and imagination merge into a single visual experience.
Your work almost seems like a map of the invisible. Do you feel more like an explorer, a geographer, or a witness?
A little bit of everything. I discover through curiosity, I map by collecting and layering impressions, and I bear witness by translating what I feel and see into something tangible. My pictures do not aim to define a place, but to visualise the emotional topography beneath it.