Saskia van Voorn

Saskia van Voorn was born in the Netherlands and studied there at the Minerva Academie of Fine Arts in Groningen. She immigrated to New Zealand with her family in 1988. Her home and studio are at Le Bons Bay on Banks Peninsula.

Landscapes, plants and people feature in Saskia's watercolours and prints. She generally works on a small scale in a figurative manner. The natural environment is her favourite field and main inspiration. Saskia specializes in woodblock printing using a technique inspired by the 18th and 19th century woodcuts of Japan, Ukiyo-e (pictures of the fleeting world). She makes detailed pencil and pen and ink drawings, made "en plein air", that she uses for her woodcut designs, capturing the mood of a particular moment in the often-changing landscape. For one print she uses multiple woodblocks, mostly 7 or 8, each block chosen for it's own specific texture, grain. She makes extensive use of gradation in the colours to achieve depth and subtlety.

Saskia exhibits her work widely, in solo and group shows, in New Zealand and overseas.