Bio

My work is about the plurality of my own identity and how I relate to the world around me. I mainly paint self-portraits, which deal with my childhood, my queer identity and being a 'woman'. My work is, therefore, autobiographical but also touches on elements of fiction in the search for that own identity. My portraits constantly balance between characters and myself, touching on personal issues of sexuality, identity and memories. Subjects I deal with include myself as a young woman, free and spiritual, seductive, historical, traumatised, powerful, as a painter, as a lesbian woman, and as a human being. 

Over the years, I have created and collected a special collection of garments that represent the different characters of my portraits . They are thematically linked by cultural references and explorations within the experience of being a woman. I experiment with the shape of these garments but also with the visibility of the naked body. In doing so, I try to question traditional notions of 'being a ’ and what this means to me.

I, Joline Kwakkenbos (b. 1997, Hilversum, Netherlands) grew up in a small dutch village. In my childhood, the need to express myself in drawing and painting was already present. In 2019, I obtained my bachelor's degree in Fashion Design. Through the diversity of subjects I received during my studies in Fashion Design, I discovered that my visual language could also find form through painting. Something I started exploring more after my studies.