Tessel van der Putte is a visual artist painting worlds of deeper connection with the natural world, especially water, and with each other. She is a recognized artist member of Stroom Den Haag and a board member of the Geneva-based NGO Green Seed.

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Van der Putte did not begin her path as a full-time artist. She studied International Law and Human Rights at the United Nations University for Peace and completed a Liberal Arts and Science programme in Global Challenges in World Politics, during which she conducted extensive research on Indigenous land rights and the impact of climate change on small island nations. Over the years, she discovered the powerful stories that can be told through art, and came to understand that creative expression is an essential part of imagining better futures.

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Today, her work interweaves themes of human rights, the boundaries of the body, and our relationship with moving waters and changing landscapes in a time of climate change and environmental degradation. She paints about longing for, finding, and re-creating belonging to place — to oneself, to the land, to the waters around us.

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In her practice, Van der Putte continually explores how law and art, analysis and intuition, come together. On her canvases, she continues this contract, where body and space merge, and she re-imagines dream-like, androgynous, and feminine figures flowing into one another like rising tides, changing shorelines, or expanding wild rivers.

 

Each painting seeks to reveal the beauty of vulnerability and connection, reminding us of the natural world that surrounds us, and the one that lives within us.

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Van der Putte lives and works near the Haagsche Bos, with a base in Mexico City and in Los Angeles. Her work can be followed on Instagram, where she shares new pieces, glimpses of her process, and updates on upcoming exhibitions.