1949 - Born in Eindhoven, the Netherlands
1967-1970 and 1976-1978 - Study in arts and art history at the Akademie voor beeldende vorming, in Tilburg.
1970-1990 - Teaching esthetics on highschools and academy's
1983 - First exhibition of oil paintings

She is nervous like a racehorse before the start. Goes to and fro and would like nothing better than to get all her paintings out right away. You hardly get a chance to take in the sun-drenched, bright rooms of the apartment, which have been converted into studios. A sturdy easel with a painting in its early stages, a few things on the wall, canvases of all sizes leaning against the wall, mirrors in a corner give me a view of myself. Straight-ahead is a doorway. The door itself has been removed. A vista which -with hindsight -is symbolic for her work.

Toos van Holstein (1949) has been painting for very nearly twenty years, but was rather hampered in her development by the daily cares of teaching in a secondary school. Only the last few years has she opened out and has her work been growing in the depth that she envisages consciously, but unconsciously even more.

Toos has sat down on a stool next to the easel, but something like that can never be of long duration. The paintings are waiting. She bursts forth, starts turning around paintings and talks. A stream of words that carries me along through the world, from Mexico to North Africa. Garcia Marquez, iguanas, buildings, gateways, people, feelings, openings, blockades. I am chaotic, she puts in apologetically somewhere.

It becomes a fascinating journey, which takes me to North Africa, to Latin America and suddenly back again. A journey also through the world of her art, where roads often take unexpected turnings. Sometimes there is light, euphoria, then darkness again in which you wander about blindly. She dreams Marquez’s world of one hundred years of solitude, she dreams the mystery of the east. Cities emerge, gateways, domes, narrow alleys, silent people, the shaman engaged in his rites of holy wisdom.

Then suddenly there is a western girl, lost among immense buildings. A self-portrait? A child having to find its own way in an unknown, sometimes or often hostile, threatening world? “Alice in wonderland” says Toos. The words hang in the room for a moment, stay with the painting for a while until it disappears against the wall again. The mystery is not expanded on. What road did the child choose? There were gateways and doorways aplenty. In much of her work Toos van Holstein chooses for the mystery, or rather for not solving the mystery. The viewer is given ample scope, the scope in the painting, the scope of the essence of the artist.

Most of the people, especially those that breathe the atmosphere of Northern Africa, stand or sit with their backs to the viewer. Turned inward, draped in the rags of the unknown inner self. Sometimes Toos turns them around. A man, a woman, but the mystery remains. Inscrutable and because of that of intense beauty. A woman in a light-coloured dress, the sun pours all its brightness over the alleys and the buildings. A woman in the centre. “That is me”, Toos murmurs. “Strange, but I too love being in the centre” and as if to conceal her embarrassment she turns round the easel with the unfinished painting.

She cannot get away from it entirely though. She also recognises herself in the small guide who took her through the jungle in Mexico. A small human being in an immense and undefined decor. For a while she allows her mind to wander to Mexico. She remembers the image of the colours, the red, the yellow, the decay of the weatherworn walls. “It so ties in with what I feel. The mystery of the essential and the unreal, the feelings you have as an artist. The urge to paint and to give in to what lives inside you, but that you are hardly aware of’.

Text by art critic Rob Sanders



THE PAINTINGS OF TOOS VAN HOLSTEIN
In some of Toos van Holstein's paintings the atmosphere is shimmering.In others we are struck by the immense stillness. All of them, however, are recognisable as her work, even from a distance. This monde interieur that is all her own, is the outcome of impressions that she gained during her many journeys to places that are rich in atmosphere, mystic places such as Yemen, Mexico and China.

In her worlds human forms figure in open or domed monumental spaces that are part of vaguely indicated architectonic buildings. The human figures in these spaces may be conveyed either in detail or purely evocatively. We are struck by the slightly elongated body forms, that are accentuated by long garments.

Toos van Holstein has travelled a long road to come to these paintings. After having graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Tilburg, she devoted much time and energy to art education in schools for a long period of time. At the same time she carried on with her great passion, painting; and exhibited from time to time.

After having said goodbye to education her career gained momentum. That has led to regular exhibitions in art galleries all over The Netherlands. Abroad too, interest in her work grew and that resulted in exhibitions in Belgium, France, Italy and the U.S.A.

Ever since her days at the academy it has been obvious that, without actually having been there, she was inspired by the atmosphere and the mysticism of the Middle East. Consequently her first journey to Egypt was a déjà vu as well as a new source of inspiration.

That trip was followed by visits to i.a. Tunesia, Yemen, Jordan and Syria. Cultures other than those of the Middle East also have Toos van Holstein's interest, which becomes manifest from recent study tours to Central America, China and Sri Lanka.

In addition she has regularly been spending periods of several months in the area around that famous artists' village, St Paul de Vence on the Côte d'Azur. In these surroundings the atmospher of the South European middle ages is still clearly noticeable. All these experiences have, in one way oranother, found their way onto her canvases.

To convey her monde interieur Toos van Holstein uses a very personal and harmonious coloration. She combines her colouring with the so-called glazing technique, in which a transparent undercoat is covered with paste-like oil paint which, layer upon layer, gives an almost tactile depth and structure to the images im the paintings.This combination of technique, colouring and monde interieur leads to very suggestive images from which the viewer can only withdraw with difficulty.

The origin of Toos van Holstein's success may very well be, that through her paintings the viewer's imagination is greatly stimulated and that he gains an insight in his own interior world.

Dr. H. T. Witteveen

2001 Galerie Tracé, Maastricht (The Netherlands)
2001 Galerie Kei 'de Stadsherberg', Amersfoort (The Netherlands)
2001 Gallery Quadrige, Nice (France)
2000 Holland Art Fair, The Hague (The Netherlands)
2000 Galerie Artterre, Eefde (The Netherlands)
2000 Creekside Gallery, Park City, Utah (USA)
2000 Galerie Lambèr, Valkenswaard (The Netherlands)
2000 St'Art Art Fair, Strassbourg, with Gallery Quadrige (France)
1999 Galerie Lambèr, Valkenswaard (The Netherlands)
1999 Galerie Articoll, Hoogezand (Meerwijck) (The Netherlands)
1999 St'Art Art Fair, Strassbourg, with Gallery Quadrige (France)
1999 Galerie Lambèr, Valkenswaard (The Netherlands)
1999 Holland Art Fair, The Hague (The Netherlands)
1999 L'Athanor, Scène Nationale d'Albi / á la Casa d'Espagna, Castres (France)
1997 'Le Temps de la Sculpture', Nice (France)
1997 Classic 6th International Biennale, Kortrijk (Belgium)
1997 Gallery Arterre, Eefde (The Netherlands)
1997 Galerie De Vlierhove, Blaricum (The Netherlands)
1997 Foire Art Contemporain, Strassbourg, with Gallery Quadrige (France)
1997 Galerie Needien, Neede (The Netherlands)
1997 Gallery Quadrige, Nice (France)
1997 Percorsi d'Arte, Venice (Italy)
1997 'Art Multiple', Art Fair in Düsseldorf (Germany)
1997 Galerie Artterre, Eefde (The Netherlands)
1996 Lineart Art Fair, Gent (Belgium)
1996 Galerie Artterre, Voorthuizen (The Netherlands)
1996 Galerie Tracé, Maastricht (The Netherlands)
1996 'Villa Pisani', Venice (Italy)
1996 'Martinikerk', Franeker (The Netherlands)
1996 AFA Art Fair, Rosmalen (The Netherlands)
1996 Galerie 'Lambèr', Valkenswaard (The Netherlands)
1995 Galerie De Roos van Tudor, Franeker (The Netherlands)
1995 Galerie Lambèr, Valkenswaard (The Netherlands)
1995 Holland Art Fair, The Hague (The Netherlands)
1995 Gallery Quadrige, Saint-Jeannet (France)
1995 Musée Municipal, Saint-Paul de Vence (France)
1995 Galerie Beukenhof, Kluisbergen (Belgium)
1995 'Rocca dei Perugini', Spoleto (Italy)
1995 AFA Art Fair, Rosmalen (The Netherlands)
1994 Galerie De Vlierhove, Blaricum (The Netherlands)
1994 Galerie Den Peroun, Maaseik (Belgium)
1994 Galeries Cristiane Cloots, Brussel (Belgium)
1993 Galerie Lambèr, Valkenswaard (The Netherlands)
1993 Galerie De Roos van Tudor, Franeker (The Netherlands)
1992 Galerie De Twee Pauwen, The Hague (The Netherlands)
1992 Galerie Den Peroun, Maaseik (Belgium)
1991 Galerie De Roos van Tudor, Franeker (The Netherlands)

The Netherlands
Galerie Artterre
De Haemstede'
Zutphenseweg 42
7211 ED Eefde
Tel. 0575 - 492720
Fax. 0575 - 492785

Galerie Lambèr
Markt 19
5554 CA Valkenswaard
Tel. 040 - 2076036

Galerie De Roos van Tudor
Noord 84
8801 KS Franeker
Tel. 0517 - 394510

Galerie Tracé
Alexander Battalaan 31
6221 CA Maastricht
Tel. 043 - 3260071

Galerie Kei 'De Stadsherberg'
Achter de Kamp Grote St. Jansstraat
Amersfoort
Tel. 033 - 4722424

Galerie Articoll
Schoener 22
Hoogezand Meerwijck
Tel. 0598 - 327710


USA
Creekside Gallery
780 Main Street, P.O.Box 4072, Park City
Utah 84060-4072, USA
creeksidegallery@utah-inter.net.

Creekside Gallery
7019 East Main Street, Scottsdale
Arizona, 85251, USA
Tel./fax: 480-947-1654


Belgium

Galerie Natascha
Zeedijk-Zoute 675
8300 Knokke
Tel. 050 - 6005226


Italy
la galleria 'Percorsi d'Arte 90'
Campo S. Maurizio
S. Marco 2668/A 30124 Venezia
tel. 041 - 523 54 97
http://www.perarte.it

France
la galerie 'Quadrige'
21 Rue de France 06000 Nice
tel. 0493877440
http://www.french-riviera-mag.com