BIOGRAPHY
Born in the Netherlands, Manuela Luchtmeijer chose to make Paris her home at the age of 19. She studied Japanese language and culture at INALCO, alongside her artistic training at the Beaux-Arts de Paris. During her studies, she also worked for five years at the Louvre Museum, where observing the collections and regularly drawing from the works profoundly shaped her eye and her line.
After an initial career in an international professional environment, she decided in 2005 to devote herself fully to her artistic practice. Her first solo exhibition took place in Paris in 2006; since then, she has exhibited regularly in France and abroad, notably at the OECD, the Grand Palais, UNESCO, Bankside Gallery in London and Centre d’Art Campredon. Since 2023, her work has also been presented on several occasions at Atelier Néerlandais (Embassy of the Netherlands) in Paris. Her works are held in private collections in France and abroad.
Manuela lives and works in Montmartre, Paris.
ARTIST'S APPROACH
For me, painting is a space for exploration that unfolds over time. A subject does not reveal itself in a single work: it develops, shifts and transforms through a series, sometimes over the course of several years. As the research progresses and the subject deepens, new paths emerge, and a series may in turn unfold into several distinct cycles.
Research is inseparable from my artistic practice. Reading, writing, visual research, drawing and observation all accompany the gradual development of a series. One image leads to another; a few written lines may open up a new direction, while a study or painting can sometimes unsettle what I thought I was looking for. I am drawn to this movement between thought and gesture, as the subject gradually comes into focus and finds its own pictorial language.
I move freely between figuration and abstraction, favouring the space in between, where reality remains present without being fully described. A work can therefore carry narrative, symbolic and imaginary dimensions simultaneously. It is within this in-between space that I locate what I like to call ‘suggestive painting’.
Across the diversity of my series, certain threads recur. Light, which has fascinated me for a long time, is perhaps the most evident. Empty space also plays an essential role in my painting: not as an absence, but as an active element of the composition, a space in which the subject can extend beyond itself and resonate.
Born in the Netherlands, I grew up surrounded by the legacy of Northern painting, its skies and atmospheres, and its long exploration of light and chiaroscuro. This pictorial memory resonates particularly strongly in SKY series, a series begun in 2020 that I continue to develop today. My studies of Japanese language and my time spent in Japan have, in a very different way, shaped my way of seeing and profoundly influenced my relationship to empty space, refinement and line. Their imprint can be found in my drawings and prints as much as in my paintings.
Painting is also, for me, a way of suspending time. Faced with the relentless pace and noise of the world, I seek to open up a space in which the gaze can pause, where the work invites a moment of contemplation, reflection, or sometimes simply a moment to breathe.