BLOEM displays a selection of Verwey’s flower still lifes alongside those of contemporary, well-known painters, for whom flowers or plants also form a recurring theme. Although the way they do this, their motivations to do it, and the meanings it holds for them vary greatly from Verwey’s. These differences may be present in material aspects – ranging from very light, scraped away, almost nothing, to very thick and rich – in content-related aspects – the underlying intentions of the work – or in formal aspects – the level of abstraction.

The studio of Marc Mulders (Tilburg, 1958) is surrounded by flower fields, and flowers literally form his direct living and working environment. He paints canvases with seemingly infinite amounts of fields or landscapes full of peonies, parrot tulips, irises, or lilies. Mulders’ work shares a resemblance with that of Verwey in the material, the thickness of his oil paintings. They also share a love and skill for painting in watercolor.

Ronald Zuurmond (The Hague, 1964) uses the painting of a houseplant or a branch of cherry blossom to recover from the suffering of the world, because in addition to nature, he also paints, based on newspaper photos, major themes such as life and death. Unlike Verwey, he is so deeply imbued and busy with the suffering of the world, that he needs these works to recover from it.

Visit Bloem from 8 July 2023 till 7 January 2024 at verwey museum haarlem, with the works of NQ Gallery’s artists Marc Mulders and Ronald Zuurmond.

More info: https://museumhaarlem.nl