MARCELLE HANSELAAR
The Dutch artist Marcelle Hanselaar’s London breakthrough came with her series of etchings La Petite Mort, a French euphemism for orgasm, in which hidden trauma and suppressed desire have been imaginatively etched into the plate. Her etchings are included in the collection of the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, and the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
(c) Thomas Voelker 2021
The Crying Game, a more recent set of 30 etchings, is a contemporary response to Otto Dix’s series Der Krieg and Francisco Goya’s Desastras de la guerra. With masterful technique in black, white and grey tones, Hanselaar portrays current harsh realities, ranging from child soldiers to youth stabbings in her beloved London.
The exhibition The Bark and the Bite is open from 5 November 2021 until 7 February 2022.