Artworks by Vita Schagen

I make paintings of everyday subjects—landscapes, city scenes, interiors, people, flowers and still lifes. Each work begins with something that has caught my attention: a particular light, a quiet relationship between colours, or an ordinary moment that suddenly feels vivid.

I am less interested in explaining what the image means to me than in what it can offer the person looking at it. I want the painting to create an experience through colour, light and atmosphere—perhaps awakening a memory or simply inviting another look.

Making a painting is my first move in a conversation with someone I may never meet. I do not prescribe the reply; whatever the response, it belongs to the viewer.

Working from my studio in Amsterdam or my summer atelier in Italy, I paint primarily in oil and sometimes in acrylic. I apply most of the paint with a palette knife, building an impasto surface whose raised marks catch the light; I use brushes only sparingly. The colour palette changes from painting to painting, although I remain attached to every shade of blue. My paintings are generally medium to large in scale.

If a painting continues to be seen and enjoyed after it leaves the studio—if it becomes part of someone’s everyday life—then the viewer has answered, and the dialogue has begun. That continuing relationship is at the centre of my work.