Petra Verlooij’s artistic journey began at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague, one of the Netherlands’ most respected institutions for creative education. It was there that her lifelong fascination with artistic expression took shape, first as a student immersed in fine arts, and later as an art teacher dedicated to nurturing creativity in others.
Over the years, Verlooij’s work has evolved into a profound dialogue between nature and humanity, expressed through layers of paint, texture, and symbolism. Since 1990, she has focused primarily on painting animals and wildlife, capturing their strength, vulnerability, and connection to the world around them. As her practice deepened, so did her curiosity about the delicate balance between mankind and nature, a theme that continues to guide her recent works.
Expanding the Narrative: From Animals to Humanity
While her early works centered around wildlife, Verlooij’s current paintings reveal an expanded world that embraces people, animals, flowers, and landscapes as interconnected beings within the same visual story. Each subject becomes a voice within a larger conversation about coexistence, belonging, and balance.
Her artistic research delves into the relationship between humans and the natural environment, reflecting both harmony and tension. Verlooij often portrays her subjects as if they are searching for a rightful place, mirroring the broader human quest for peace and purpose in a rapidly changing world.
Through her art, she invites viewers to contemplate not only the external beauty of nature but also its spiritual and emotional significance. This approach transforms her canvases into meditations on empathy, coexistence, and renewal.
The Dance of Realism and Abstraction
For Petra Verlooij, painting is a process of constant discovery where realism and abstraction meet in an ongoing dance of tension and harmony. She describes this combination as a big challenge every time, one that pushes her to experiment freely with different forms, materials, and techniques.
Her creative process begins with an abstract background, a playground of colors, shapes, and spontaneous marks. This foundation sets the emotional tone of each piece, guiding what emerges next. Using a diverse palette of media, including acrylics, ink, oil, and spray paint, she constructs layer upon layer of meaning and movement.
These layers create both visual depth and metaphorical resonance. Within them, animals, people, and flowers gradually take form as if rising from the chaos to find their rightful place. The result is a dynamic equilibrium between structure and spontaneity, between what is seen and what is felt.
A Philosophy of Connection and Respect
At the heart of Verlooij’s artistic philosophy lies a deep respect for all living beings. Her subjects are not isolated figures but participants in a shared world, each seeking harmony within the greater whole. The painter’s fascination with this universal search is evident in how she positions her figures, sometimes merging softly with their surroundings, other times emerging boldly against them.
In this interplay of forms, Verlooij reminds us that humans are not separate from nature but a part of it. Her art becomes a visual metaphor for interconnectedness, a call to recognize the beauty, fragility, and balance that sustain life on Earth.
The Artwork: Rendez-Vous
Among Petra Verlooij’s most compelling recent works is Rendez-Vous, a mixed media painting on canvas that epitomizes her artistic vision. In this piece, strength and grace meet each other in a colorful dream, where form and feeling merge seamlessly.
At the center of the composition stands a white tiger, its presence commanding yet serene. The tiger, long a symbol of power and purity, embodies the raw energy of nature, untamed, majestic, and resilient. Beside it, a woman’s figure emerges, radiating quiet elegance and introspection. She represents inner reflection, the silent grace that balances the tiger’s might.
Together, they form a symbolic dialogue between the external and the internal, strength and serenity, nature and humanity.
The Creative Process Behind Rendez-Vous
Verlooij’s approach to Rendez-Vous began with an abstract background, an open field of possibilities shaped by intuition rather than intention. The canvas invited her to paint these two beautiful creatures. What followed was a layered process, full of experimentation and adaptation, where colors, textures, and materials interacted freely.
Working with multiple layers allows her to build depth and atmosphere, creating a surface that feels alive and constantly evolving. Each stroke and splash adds new energy, guiding her toward the final harmony between subject and background.
The result is a painting that transcends mere representation and becomes an emotional landscape where imagination and reality coexist. The viewer is drawn into a space that feels both dreamlike and deeply grounded, echoing the universal quest for connection and meaning.
A Vision for the Future
As Petra Verlooij continues her artistic exploration, her work grows ever more intertwined with themes of ecological awareness, human emotion, and creative freedom. She remains committed to pushing the boundaries of her materials and to expressing the invisible links that bind all forms of life.
Her art stands as both a celebration and a reminder, a celebration of nature’s beauty and complexity, and a reminder of our shared responsibility to protect and honor it.
Through each brushstroke, Verlooij encourages viewers to slow down, observe, and reflect, to find perhaps their own rightful place in the world, just as her subjects do on the canvas.
Conclusion
Petra Verlooij’s paintings speak a universal language of color, emotion, and respect for life. In merging realism with abstraction, and humanity with the natural world, she creates art that is not only visually captivating but deeply meaningful.
Her work invites us to look beyond appearances and to feel the rhythms of coexistence that pulse beneath the surface of all living things. Whether portraying a tiger, a human, or a field of flowers, Verlooij captures the timeless connection that unites them, a connection that continues to inspire, challenge, and heal.
