Anna Nunes van den Hoven
Painter and sculptor | The Netherlands / Portugal
Anna Nunes van den Hoven is a Dutch-Portuguese autodidact artist and ecologist, whose work explores the impact of human interaction and cultural-ecological heritage in post-colonial contexts. After studying at Wageningen University, where she immersed herself in traditions surrounding collective processes and the relationship between humans and nature, her art practice evolved from figurative to conceptual and collective. Shared histories and heritage lines have since formed the basis for long-term projects in Portugal, Cape Verde, São Tomé, and the Netherlands.
In collaboration with communities and heritage holders, she investigates how colonial processes led to the interruption of traditions that embody ecological care and collectivity, and how these can be revived.
Portrait
Anna Nunes (1993), born in Portugal and currently based in the Netherlands, is an emerging contemporary artist and researcher. She graduated as an ecologist and was awarded in 2018 by the Faculty of Resource Ecology at Wageningen University for her field research in the Boé-region in Guinea-Bissau, where she investigated the biodiversity in sacred forests protected by spiritual beliefs and traditional practices of the Fulani people who inhabite the surrounding area.
The Sacred forest project resulted in various series of expressionist oil paintings portraying the women, from the African communities that hosted her, in daily life scenery.
Nunes composes her paintings across multiple planes using wide shapes and sometimes bold colours that are reminiscent of Gauguin. She typically uses a focal point such as clapping hands or an expressive gaze to pull her observation into focus and guide the viewer through the scene.
That results in portraits of strong women, marked by life, though firmly grounded with a sense of resilience and determination, somehow reminding of The Potato Eaters of Van Gogh, albeit leaving the despair behind. Portraits that transcend personal appearance and capture the naked being, the sense of community, of mutual respect for one another, of collective wisdom and values, expressing the very personal connection Nunes experienced.
Her art triggers curiosity about the hidden stories, raises questions what other communities could offer us in our search for a more connected and balanced way of living, with each other and with the world around us.
Her latest residential project "O Mundo Imaginário" (The imaginary realm) in Sao Tomé, is supported by a grant from the Dutch Foundation for Cultural Participation and the local organization Surfers Proud of African Women (SOMA), which promotes gender equality on the island. In this project Nunes examines and challenges the local gender disparities ingrained by an historical context of Dutch and Portuguese colonial rule and slavery. Noting that till today this legacy still manifests itself in violence and polarization through the authority granted to men, Nunes goes back to the core. She hits on the early shaping of values in the pre-formative phase of boys and girls, and composes an alternative future vision.
As part of the project, Nunes facilitates an artistic workshop where local artist Derley Camblé and the little boys from the Santana village share their creativity and knowledge of traditional games to help the girls in creating their own Tabua boards, help them in leaving their domestic chorus to play together in the sea.
By creating space for mixed-gender playing and learning, Nunes embraces the unifying power of games, using children's playful creativity to make a socio-political statement and inspire an experience-based genuine change.
Nunes' series of oil paintings “The coloniality of gender”, created in the "O Mundo Imaginário" project, show dreamlike, fragile visions of nude girls in typical boys activities, seemingly in their element. Minimalistic, almost sketchy, monochromatic images that surface on large natural linen formats, as if appearing from a foggy future. The subdued, simple compositions with the monochromatic fragile nude girls and the non-primed canvas lend an almost esoteric, pure dimension to her visions.
Anna Nunes has participated in various solo and group exhibitions in the Netherlands and Belgium. Her latest series are exhibited both at the Limburg Biennale (Netherlands) and the X Biennial of Art and Culture of São Tomé and Príncipe, À (re)Descoberta de NÓS, São Tomé and Príncipe, West-Africa.
Anna Nunes van den Hoven (1993), born in Portugal and currently based in the Netherlands, is an emerging contemporary artist and researcher of cultural-ecological heritage within post-colonial contexts. Raised in a family engaged internationally in sociology and social development, she grew up aware of the complexities of social equality and connected to multiple countries.
Fascinated by the human connection with earth and nature, she graduated in spiritual ecology in 2018. She was awarded by the Faculty of Resource Ecology at Wageningen University for her field research in the Boé-region in Guinea-Bissau, where she investigated the biodiversity in sacred forests protected by spiritual beliefs and traditional practices of the Fulani people. It made her realize that ancient knowledge systems and traditions rooted in feminine care for humans and nature had been largely eradicated by colonial legacies.
The Sacred forest project resulted in various series of expressionistic figurative oil paintings in a style reminiscent of Van Goghs Potatoe eaters, portraying the women from the African communities that hosted her. Women in daily life sceneries, scarred by life yet beautiful in their determination, resilience and solidarity.
Anna Nunes van den Hoven, Sense of Community V, 2021
Nunes continued to investigate the devastating impact of colonial exploitation on cultural-ecological heritage with the project “The coloniality of gender”, delving into gender inequality within the historical context of São Tomé. This island was once conceived as the first large-scale plantation experiment in the Atlantic world, which served as a role model for later systems of exploitation in South America and the Caribbean. The impact of this legacy is still felt in its violent ridden society today .
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Nunes explored the accounts of women and girls being confined to the domestic sphere, prone to threats of sexual and other abuse. Their experiences revealed how colonial legacies have disrupted cultural and ecological heritage and inscribed themselves to date upon body, movement, and landscape.
From these interactions a vision emerged about a world where little girls could grow up differently. A world where they could inhabit space without constraint and grow up freely without fear, playing and learning alongside boys in an equitable manner.
This resulted in a series of works in which girl figures, unlike reality, move freely through forest, shoreline, and sea: Minimalistic monochromatic oils on large natural linen formats and fragile, playful bronze sculptures holding the tension between dream and reality, serving as an invitation to question established norms. A first gesture towards challenging colonial legacies.
Nunes’ took her exploration one step further with a participative, real-life experiment, "O Mundo Imaginário" (The imaginary Realm), where she worked with boys and girls of local community Santana in Sao Tome to let them experience a glimpse of this vision.
Rekindling the almost forgotten traditional tabua (wooden board) game, till then confined to boys only, she invited boys to teach and help girls create and paint their own tabua and let them all play together. By living through this joint experience, she facilitated not only the recovery of an old tradition but placed it into a renewed inclusive context.
This resulted in the installation “(Re)Discovering Ourselves”, co-created with her paintings and one of the tabua created by the children, at the Xth Biënnale of Arts and culture of São Tomé en Príncipe.
In her latest project À Volta do Barro (Around Clay) Nunes
continues her co-creative research into recovering the African women-led traditions of making ceramics, rooted in
collectivity and care for the earth, so that they are remembered, practiced and reconnected
to new generations.
Nunes "My
role is conceptual and facilitative: I create the conditions in which heritage
carriers can recall, transmit, and transform their knowledge through dialogue,
residencies, and clay workshops. They act as leaders, mentors and teachers; I
assist, support, and document. In this way, the tradition was reconnected with
Lisbon (2024) through Isabel Sanches (Trás-de-Monti, Cape Verde), and
strengthened with the potters of Rabil on the island of Boa Vista (Cape Verde).
The trajectory continues to unfold with its next phase in Rotterdam.”
It led Nunes to venture into the collective creation of conceptual art, abstract earthy canvases, installation and photography. The canvases, used as a surface on which the ceramics are collectively created, capture traces of each transmission, absorbing local clay, recording gestures and registering encounters, thus becoming archives that make the act of transmission visible and literally preserve the fingerprints of communities. Together, they will form a conceptual installation, a transnational body in which the collective reconnection with this women-led tradition becomes tangible and felt.
Anna Nunes van den Hoven has participated in various solo and group exhibitions in the Netherlands, Belgium Portugal, Cape Verde and São Tomé and Príncipe.
Anna Nunes van den Hoven, (Re)discovering ourselves, 2024
Works
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Credentials
2021
- Taking you there…, Warnars & Warnars Art Dealers, Haarlem, Netherlands
2019
- The Line1 Parade, De Broodfabriek, Rijswijk, Netherlands
- People of the Boé, Gallery Koenders, The Hague, Netherlands
2018
- Paintings by Anna Nunes, Impulse Wageningen UR, Wageningen, Netherlands
2025
- Aflorar | Terra e Memória, Camões Institute, Lisbon, Portugal
2024
- ART The Hague (OpenArtExchange), The Hague, Netherlands
- The Coloniality of Gender, Limburg Biennale – Marres Maastricht, Huis voor Hedendaagse Cultuur, Netherlands
- O Mundo Imaginário (The imaginary world), X Biennial of Art and Culture of São Tomé and Príncipe, À (re)Descoberta de NÓS, São Tomé and Príncipe, West-Africa
2023
- ART The Hague (OpenArtExchange), The Hague, Netherlands)
- Skin, CBK Zuidoost, Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Ties, OpenArtExchange, Schiedam (Rotterdam), Netherlands
- Jubilee edition, Art in the Park, INNOCOM, Beerzel, Belgium
2022
- 111 artists > 111 pieces of art, WG Kunst, Amsterdam, Netherlands
- In memory – portraits of loved ones, The Dutch Portrait Prize, Loods 6, Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Alternative Realities, Museum Night, Amare, The Hague, Netherlands
- Setting for Reset, Uit Het Gareel, The Grey Space in the Middle, The Hague, Netherlands
2021
- ART The Hague (Uit Het Gareel), The Hague, Netherlands
- Faraway places, Uit Het Gareel, The Grey Space in the Middle, The Hague, Netherlands
2020
- Powerful Women, Gallery De Nispenhoeve, Prinsenbeek, Netherlands
- Wageningse Makers, City Hall, Wageningen, Netherlands
- Jubilee edition, Museum Night, The Hague, Netherlands
2024
- Project Grant International Cooperation, Fund Cultuurparticipatie, Utrecht, Netherlands
2023
- Research Grant Explore, Fund Cultuurparticipatie, Utrecht, Netherlands
2018
- The Willem Barentsz Award, Wageningen University, Netherlands. Award for the execution of Nunes research on sacred forests and her collaboration with the local inhabitants of the Boé region, Guinea-Bissau, West Africa