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Irene ter Haar was born in Rotterdam, 1952 and is living in Overveen, the Netherlands. She studied at the Rietveld Academy for a teaching degree in drawing and painting and fine arts, painting and monumental design over the period 1974 until 1982. Since graduating, she focused primarily on commissioned portraits, not only in the Netherlands, but all over the world. As of 2005, she changed her focus and concentrated on free creations. Recently, she started 'the Garbage Collection'. This is a recent series of acrylic paintings that, although figurative stills, are almost abstract. The source of inspiration is our daily garbage, as witnessed by the fast transience of matter and events in this modern age. 'The Garbage Collection' portrays those small, fleeting moments that pass inattentively, unnoticed and forgotten. In the world around us, innovation and consumption rule. Vast emphasis and attention is channeled towards the design and creation of evermore new products and ideas. But, what and whoever appears to count today, no longer counts tomorrow.
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Who, still has an eye for the fascinating composition and design of for instance, an old newspaper or wrinkled cornflakes wrapper in a garbage bin, more beautiful than any designer could devise? Exciting shapes and colors don't have to be sought afar; they are all around us and everywhere we look and are often found in fatuous details and in most unexpected places. Within her paintings she wants to try to revive or recreate what's actually been disposed of and become waste. A figurative still life sometimes appears to transform, almost becoming an abstract world in itself. Not the world in a grain of sand, but in a garbage bin. Sometimes, as the silent witness of the transience of matter and events and sometimes, simply a representation of the beauty that coincidently comes to exist when one no longer pays any attention.
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