Saskia van Voorn

Saskia van Voorn was born in 1958 in the Netherlands. Growing up in an artistic environment (her father was a well-known artist) it was part of daily life to draw and paint, meet other artists and visit art galleries and museums. She studied fine arts at the "Minerva Academie of Fine Arts" in Groningen and graduated in 1981 in painting and printmaking. It was during her years at art school that she met Siene de Vries, a fellow student, who was to become her husband. After a successful early arts career she and her family immigrated to New Zealand in 1988. They now have their home and studios at Le Bons Bay on Banks Peninsula.
 
Landscapes, plants and people feature in Saskia's watercolours and prints. She generally works on a small scale in a figurative manner. The natural environment is her favourite field and main inspiration. Saskia specialized in woodblock printing using a technique inspired by the 18th and 19th century woodcuts of Japan, Ukiyo-e (pictures of the fleeting world). She makes detailed pencil and pen and ink drawings, made "en plein air", that she uses for her woodcut designs, capturing the mood of a particular moment in the often-changing landscape. For one print she uses multiple woodblocks, mostly 7 or 8, each block chosen for it's own specific texture, grain. She makes extensive use of gradation in the colours to achieve depth and subtlety.
 
Her work is in several public and private collections around the world. Saskia has exhibited her work widely in solo and group shows over the last 30 years