Alette de Groot studied at the Minerva School of Art in Groningen/Netherlands and has been working as a visual artist since the 1990s.
Growing up with a great love for nature, active in the Third World movement and social work in the 70s and 80s, she started to work seriously as an artist since 1990. These life lines also come together naturally in all kinds of community art projects in schools and neighbourhoods.
Alette is a versatile visual artist who likes to use both new and old traditional means. Combinations of drawing, painting and printmaking remain her most commonly used techniques. As diverse as her works may be, they often feature the same motifs and basic themes: people, nature, feelings. In recent years, she has been working more and more at the interface of art, nature education and social cultural work.
In addition to her freelance work, she has produced many illustrations and other commissioned works. The last few years she has concentrated on oil painting. Alette de Groot lives and works in the “Biotope of Haren” in Groningen/Netherlands.
… It remains a mystery why it is precisely the spontaneous and visible brushstroke that fascinates me so much. Rembrandt, Goya, Manet - they all have this quick, firm and yet refined brushstroke that I love to see. I want to be able to see in a painting that it was painted, I want it to be both abstract and figurative, and to live through the brushstroke. That a hand emerges from a few virtuoso brushstrokes, I can’t get enough of that. My brain wants to see one or the other, but it sees both: a few dancing brushstrokes and a hand at the same time - and I guess that’s what fascinates me…. (Oek de Jong)
Alette de Groot - BackLeg (1994), 50 x 70 cm, Oil on Canvas
Alette de Groot - Bending (1992), 35 x 25 cm, Oil on Canvas
Alette de Groot - Shadows (2006), 35 x 25 cm, Oil on Canvas
Alette de Groot - Rust Pose (2007), 35 x 25 cm, Oil on Canvas