German artist Anna van den Hoevel transforms the memories of her travels into abstract paintings that reflect both the beauty of nature and the emotions of being human. Through aerial perspectives and unexpected materials, she creates works that speak beyond borders and cultures.
Growing up across coastlines, mountains, and cities shaped Anna’s way of seeing the world
When you look at an Anna van den Hoevel painting, it is hard to know where the map ends and where the memory begins. The work feels alive; part landscape, part feeling, and part recollection of places seen from above. The strokes don’t describe — they suggest. They don’t trap you in a single interpretation — they invite you to wander, just as Anna herself has done all her life.
Raised between the quiet, sun-soaked coastlines of Menorca, the snow-framed Austrian Alps, and the buzzing streets of Munich, Anna grew up in a constant dialogue with changing environments. These contrasts gave her not only a sharp eye for detail but also a deep sensitivity to the way landscapes shape us. “I see nature as more than scenery,” she reflects in her studio notes. “It’s a mirror for emotions.”
Looking down from above, Anna transforms landscapes into emotional languages of memory and imagination
This way of seeing has carried into her artistic process. Anna often begins with a bird’s-eye photograph taken during her travels — an image of a coastline, a stretch of mountain, or an urban sprawl. From there, she builds an abstract translation, layering acrylic paint with unconventional materials like reused varnish, earth, and mortar. The textures hold the energy of the places she’s seen — rugged cliffs, winding rivers, cracked soil, and at times, the cool geometry of cityscapes. The result is a painting that is at once familiar and unknowable, grounded yet unbound.
Her journeys across continents breathe into her canvases, leaving behind moods, tones, and hidden impressions
It would be impossible to separate Anna’s art from her journeys. She has traveled across all continents, each time carrying away impressions that eventually surface on her canvases.
Her paintings are less about documenting what she sees and more about distilling the emotions places she has roamed leave behind. A shimmering gold streak might recall sunlight on Mediterranean waters. A muted wash of gray could echo the mood of a winter sky in Northern Europe.
From school in England to shows across the world, her path built layers that shaped her artistic vision
Her upbringing and her movement across borders shaped this rhythm. As a teenager, she studied at Sidcot School in England, where she received her International Baccalaureate. Later, her path carried her through different art scenes and residencies, leading her to exhibitions across Europe, North America, China, and South Africa.
Her works, whether hanging in a gallery or displayed at a fair, are reminders that abstraction speaks to something larger than geography; it speaks to how humans experience place.
In the studio, her process is less about control and more about discovering what the canvas wants to reveal
For Anna, painting is never just a technical exercise. The process itself is a dialogue, often revealing something she did not expect. By layering materials, letting them dry, and working back into the surface, she discovers new dimensions of texture and meaning. This openness makes her work not static, but alive — constantly shifting, much like the landscapes she draws from.
She often describes her studio practice as an extension of traveling. “When I paint, I feel like I’m moving again,” she says. “It’s as if the canvas becomes a map I can walk across.” This quality is perhaps why her paintings feel immersive — you don’t simply look at them, you enter them.
Her exhibitions across continents show how abstraction can dissolve borders and connect with any audience
Anna’s work continues to find recognition on the international stage. In 2025, her pieces will be showcased with Alday Hunken Gallery at the Atlanta Art Fair, SCOPE Miami, and the 2026 Venice Biennale, expanding her presence in the global art scene.
But beyond the exhibitions, what stands out is how her art dissolves borders. Whether a viewer is in Berlin, New York, Cape Town, or Beijing, the language of abstraction speaks directly, bypassing words to reach something universal.
Her art resonates because it creates space for each viewer’s own journeys, memories, and emotions
At its heart, Anna’s art is about more than places. It’s about belonging, memory, and perception. The landscapes she paints are not only physical but emotional maps of how it feels to stand on a mountain ridge, to look out from an airplane window, or to recall the shimmer of the sea years after leaving it behind.
Her canvases remind us that travel is not only about crossing distances. It’s also about the inner journeys we take when confronted with beauty, strangeness, or awe. In that sense, Anna van den Hoevel is not only painting landscapes of the world but also landscapes of the soul.
To explore more of Anna’s work, visit her studio online: www.annavandenhoevelstudio.com
