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However bread and butter had to come to the table. So, she enrolled in a teacher training course selecting drawing as her specialization and subsequently worked many years in different schools. However the passion never left her, and in 1986 she decided to leave the “roundabout” and enrolled as an evening student at the Royal Academy in The Hague. The very strict regime at the Academy was not quite to her liking, but she finished the course successfully in 1991. Freed from the rules at the Academy, she quickly developed her own style.

Bright colours and a combination of realism and abstract are the key elements in her work. Very rapidly, Saskia could not be stopped anymore:  after the first sell-out exhibition in 1994 she decided to reduce her hours of teaching, and  after 1996 she became a full time artist. Since then, her name has been circulating among art-loving Holland. Various assignments and exhibitions have come her way in other countries like Belgium, Germany and Portugal. At the Boukamel Contemporary Art Gallery in London all her works displayed were sold out within days.

One well known art critic in Holland compared Saskia’s works with Chagall’s. Though this is perhaps a slightly excessive compliment, it is perfectly true that Saskia’s work “makes you happy” – the statement of an elderly lady who bought a painting of hers after her husband’s death. That is more than enough encouragement for Saskia to continue to paint and to make the world look bright and happy.

(text by Ronald Zimet, art collector)

Selection of main exhibitions

• 1996 The Hague, Netherlands, Holland Art Fair
• 1997 Amsterdam, Foundation of Modern Art
• 1998 London, Boukamel Contemporary Art Gallery
• 1999 Alphen a.d. Rijn, Netherlands, Galerie Helga Hofman
• 2000 Almancil, Portugal, Centro cultural de São Lourenço
• 2001 Amstelveen, Netherlands, Museum Jan van der Togt
• 2002 Vale do Lobo, Portugal, Galería de Arte
• 2003 Aalsmeer, Netherlands, Sport & Art Contest, Athens 2004
• 2004 Lisbonne, Portugal, Galerías do Palacio Sotto Mayor
• 2005 Loule, Portugal, Galería de Arte Convento Espírito Santo
• 2006 Vale do Lobo, Galería de Arte
• 2007 Monheim am Rhein, Germany, Galerie Per-Opti