>>>> CV <<<<
GRANTS
2019 - 2020 - Stipendium for Emerging Artists, Mondriaan Fund NL
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2024 - Xafarix - Solo-exhibtion - Lisbon PT
2022 - Har Hensgens Gallery - Solo-exhibition - Vlaardingen NL
2022 - Maaskoe Gallery - Solo-exhibtion - Rotterdam NL
2019 - Art Room Mina - Solo residency show - Amsterdam NL
2017 - Savage Lily - Solo-exhibition - Rotterdam NL
2014 - Electron - Solo-project / exhibition - Breda NL
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024 - ‘A relation between Bokdesign & Eelke Renschke Bekkenutte - Art Gallery Har Hensgens - VLaardingen NL
2024 - ‘Artfair kunst in de kerk’ - Onder de linden - Vlaardingen NL
2023 - ‘Fluweel’ - Group-exhibition represented by Har Hensgens Gallery - Vlaardingen NL
2022 - Empowerment woman at North Sea Jazz - Group-exhibition - Rotterdam NL
2022 - Heart Work Heroes - Openair group-exhibtion - Rotterdam NL
2021 - New Sludge|| - Group-exhibition - Rotterdam NL
2021 - Prospects and Concepts - Van Nelle Fabriek - Art Rotterdam NL
2020 - New Sludge - Group-exhibtion - Rotterdam NL
2020 - Art Room Mina - Group exhibition - Amsterdam NL
2019 - WolfART_Projectspace - Group-exhibition - ‘Nearly every thought leads to nothing - Rotterdam NL
2019 - Glub Gusto - Event/group-exhibition - Rotterdam NL
2017 - WORM - Group-exhibition - Rotterdam NL
2016 - Hoboken - Group-exhibition - Rotterdam NL
2016 - KC kunstcafee - Duo-exhibition - Schiedam NL
2016 - Hoboken - Group-exhibition - Rotterdam NL
RESIDENCIES
2020 - De Fabriek - Eindhoven NL
2019 - Art Room Mina - Solo residency show - Amsterdam NL PARTICIPATION EVENTS
2021 - KeileCafe - Performance burning art ritual - Rotterdam NL
2020 - KeileCafe - Performance burning art ritual - Rotterdam NL
2017 - Minifest - Live painting - Rotterdam NL
2017 - Keilecafe - Live painting - Rotterdam NL
2017 - Mono - Wallpainting - Rotterdam NL
EDUCATION
2011 - 2015 - AKV ST Joost Breda, bachelor, photography, graduated in July 2015
>>>>> BIO <<<<
Eelke Renschke Bekkenutte (1993) is a Dutch visual artist living and working between Portugal and the Netherlands. Her practice focuses on expressive, abstract painting. Recurring themes in her work include destruction and becoming, time and movement, transformation and freedom — always in relation to the tension between control and surrender, and the way memory, the senses, and physical gesture influence the creative process. In a time when digital perfection is increasingly the norm, she consciously chooses the raw, the unfinished, and the intuitive. In addition to painting, her work also includes analog photography, poetry, installation, and performance.
>>>> ARTIST STATEMENT <<<<
My work is a continuous practice in letting go: of control, of judgment, of the known, of the urge for perfection, of what should be ‘beautiful’ or ‘finished.’ I paint in wild gestures, with my eyes closed or using extended brushes. I tear the canvas and stitch it back together, I paint over what I initially wanted to preserve. Each painting is a play between chaos and order, between destruction and becoming.
The layering, the scratching, the smearing, the rewriting of earlier gestures evokes the texture of time, memory, and movement. My paintings carry traces of earlier versions, former selves, discarded thoughts and past moments — not as remnants of something that no longer belongs, but as supporting layers that nourish the present work. A tension arises between what remains visible and what has been erased — and it’s precisely this tension that keeps the work open, alive, unfinished.
I don’t work from a fixed plan, but follow impulses: a sound, a smell, a memory, a phrase. Every sense can provide direction. I’m fascinated by the idea that in a single moment, multiple sensory layers are experienced simultaneously — what we see, feel, smell, think, remember, dream. It all overlaps, and in that intertwining, space for the image emerges. My work doesn’t seek to explain, but to create space for experience — whether or not it can be understood, or perhaps precisely because it can’t.
In a world increasingly dominated by control, perfection, and digital precision — fueled by technology and AI — I consciously choose the unpredictable, the intuitive, the imperfect. My work is a plea for the raw, the unfinished, the frayed edges of being. Not out of nostalgia, but out of necessity — to remain real, to remain alive.
Returning themes in my work include destruction and becoming, time and movement, transformation and freedom.