Lisa van Oosten

Lisa was raised in Zutphen in the east of The Netherlands.

As a daughter of an architect (father) and urban geographer (mother), her parents influenced her sense of aesthetic and architectural detail. Because of this early awareness of art and urban identity, she had the chance to develop herself creatively from a young age. As a child, she spent time in her father's atelier, where she found drawing materials in abundance and built models with scrap materials.

Later, after a few years of playing around with fashion design, she resorted to painting in her late teens. She developed her artistic abilities further while living in Utrecht, where she moved in 2016 to study at the University. There she graduated in 2021 with a Bachelors's in Italian Studies, focusing on (socio)linguistics, and an additional Honours Degree. From 2019 to 2020 she lived in Bologna, Italy. A city whose architecture and atmosphere keep on inspiring her.

Van Oosten’s works mostly consist of paintings focussed on the female perspective and her own personal experiences as a young woman in today’s fast-pace and patriarchal yet emancipated society. Via her works, she breaks from the male gaze and normalizes the female nude by portraying women’s bodies as seen and experienced by women themselves instead of the often sexualized perspective of the observer. By doing so, she stimulates female empowerment and self-acceptance in her female audience.

Her work is characterized by high contrasts in (often saturated) colour, balanced compositions and (super)natural elements that symbolize inner strength and women's connection with nature.