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Pauline Koehorst is an artist specialized in children’s portraits. She meets the children she paints in the streets or sometimes at schools or day-care centers. She takes pictures of their neutral face-expression. In her portraits she combines these pictures with her remembrance of the mood of the particular child at that time.
Instead of the standard expressions like innocence and concernedness, it’s like she chooses for the expression of an adult person who carries the burdens of his past and matching emotions.
The depicted children look at you in a serious way and many times some kind of torment is visible in their eyes. The expression also evolves out of their position, the use of colour and the small distortion or exaggerations. Koehorst’s portraits tell us what lies underneath. Because of the pale skin and lack of brushstrokes it’s like she paints spirits instead of living creatures.
Pauline Koehorst tries to capture the layers that lie underneath the surface. Her portraits are often described as sensitive, direct, intense and sometimes confronting.