Elizabeth de Vaal, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Willem de Kooning Academy, painting, printing and drawing. Postgraduate studies at Ateliers (formerly Ateliers’ 63).
De Vaal sources her work in texts, diagrams and images, often found in unfamiliar environments encountered in her many travels and artist residencies. Her curiosity and fascination with unknown spaces and histories, lead to the creation of enigmatic paintings and in situ multimedia works.
De Vaal has received a number of awards in The Netherlands such as the Royal Grant for painting. She has exhibited extensively in galleries and museums in her home country. Abroad, she has participated in group exhibitions in Egypt, Hungary, South Korea, Sweden and Indonesia. In 2005 she participated in the CrossArt exhibition in Bonn, Germany, curated by Jean-Christophe Ammann.
For many years she worked as a lecturer and guest teacher at the most important Academies of Fine Art in Holland.
In 1999 she was invited by the Ohio State University ((US) as a guest lecturer – artist in residence.
From 1984 until 2006 de Vaal was advisor to several leading art institutions in the Netherlands.
Since 2004, de Vaal works for a part of the year in her studio in Hungary where she is involved as guest teacher in the Professional Week at the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Pécs. In the nearby village of Pécsbagota she initiated in 2007 an artist-in-residency program. She is closely involved with the organization of art projects in Holland and Hungary.