ArtbyHercules

Renske Karlien Hercules (1989) is a contemporary painter based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. During her life, Renske always has been inspired by fashion and beauty photography of luxury brands and magazines. She started to question her choice of study during her bachelors. As she got rejected after applying for art college she finished her bachelor and masters in Communication Science, followed by a career in marketing in a variety of media and automotive corporates. During the pandemic in 2020 she found out she was pregnant and turned her life around by quitting her 9 to 5 job to focus on her family and her art. Since her time in university she slowly started expanding her hobby by creating and selling digital illustrations of female portraits and accessories. Years later she started using oil painting that is now her main choice of medium. Renske is a prolific portraitist who is fascinated by the beauty of women and female faces. She used oil paints and hardware tools to paint abruptly and spontaneously in the beginning of her painting process and more traditional techniques to finish the paintings. Her approach relies on dripping, splashing and swooshing paint, revealing the physicality of the painting process in the final piece. Her paintings are listed in private collections worldwide. Currently she is represented on a number of online galleries and her paintings are exhibited in her art studio in Amsterdam that can be visited by appointment. “I try to be fast and spontaneous when I’m painting, giving it an abstract look from nearby, but the painting should be recognizable and realistic from a distance when it’s done. The observer should be able to infer the physicality of the painting process when viewing it up close. I’m not aiming for a painting that looks like a photograph. The drips, splashes and structure of the paint should give the artwork an interesting extra dimension when seeing it in real life”