Marie Louise Elshout brings Hunters at Dawn to BIG ART Rotterdam

ROTTERDAM, 7 September 2026 – Dutch artist Marie Louise Elshout will present her four-part work Hunters at Dawn at BIG ART Rotterdam from 11 to 13 September 2026. Presented by Berlin-based janinebeangallery, the 4.5-metre-wide work combines a dreamlike birch forest with darker ideas around vulnerability, control, nature and human intervention.

Hunters at Dawn at BIG ART

Hunters at Dawn consists of four canvases measuring a combined 180 by 450 centimetres. Elshout uses pencil, charcoal, acrylic and oil paint alongside real leaves, creating a work in which drawing and painting meet physical material from the natural world.

The scene unfolds somewhere between night and day, dream and reality. A luminous birch forest is rendered in turquoise and deep greens, while an intense, almost artificial neon pink spreads across the forest floor. At its centre are two girls wearing hare masks and white dresses. At first, the figures give the scene the appearance of a strange fairy tale, but a small hare hanging from a string introduces a more unsettling element.

That shift is central to the work. What initially appears playful gradually raises questions about vulnerability, control and violence, leaving the meaning open rather than directing you towards a single interpretation.

A forest between dream and unease

Fairy tales, mythology, folklore and superstition regularly appear in Elshout’s work. Here they function as forms of cultural memory, carrying ideas about fear, power, transformation, care and danger from one generation to another.

The hare masks also blur the division between human and animal identity. A mask can conceal and protect its wearer while simultaneously transforming them, making the relationships between the figures less fixed than they initially appear.

The work has connections with a longer artistic tradition of the fantastic and the uncanny, from Jheronimus Bosch and Francisco de Goya through Symbolism to the psychologically charged paintings of Paula Rego. Elshout does not directly reproduce these artists or their imagery, instead developing her own visual language around similar tensions between familiar stories and unsettling experiences.

Within that language, the forest is both a setting and a psychological space. Its unnatural pink floor is particularly important, referring to an artificial environment created by humans and introducing an ecological dimension to the painting.

Marie Louise Elshout in her studio in Rotterdam 2026

Nature becomes part of the painting

That relationship between nature and human intervention also appears in the materials themselves. Pencil and charcoal sit alongside acrylic and oil paint, while real leaves have been incorporated into the surface. Nature therefore appears twice, both as the subject of the forest and as physical material within the artwork. From a distance, the four canvases combine into an approximately 4.5-metre-wide woodland landscape. As you move closer, that apparent unity breaks apart into individual lines, layers of colour, marks and small details.

The work is designed to reveal itself gradually. Beauty and discomfort, nature and artificiality, and familiarity and estrangement remain present at the same time, with the fairy-tale imagery opening broader questions about power, vulnerability and our relationship with the natural environment.

BIG ART comes to Rotterdam

Elshout’s work forms part of the twelfth edition of BIG ART, which is coming to Rotterdam for the first time. From 11 to 13 September, the exhibition takes over the historic Codrico factory on Katendrecht.

More than 100 large-scale works will be presented throughout the former industrial complex, spanning painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, light art, video and installation. The factory’s raw architecture becomes part of the setting rather than simply functioning as a neutral exhibition hall. 

Hunters at Dawn can be found in Building 3, Section B, No. 3.25.

More information about Marie Louise Elshout and janinebeangallery is available at https://www.janinebeangallery.com/.

Visiting BIG ART Rotterdam

BIG ART Rotterdam runs from Friday 11 to Sunday 13 September 2026, with the exhibition open daily from 11:00 to 18:00. 

The move to Rotterdam gives the event a particularly fitting setting. The Codrico factory is one of Katendrecht’s most recognisable industrial landmarks, with its silos and green cube forming part of the Rijnhaven skyline. The event also offers a rare opportunity to enter parts of a factory complex that have generally not been accessible to the public. Works will be shown both inside the buildings and around the site. 

For Elshout, that industrial environment places the artificial colours and natural imagery of Hunters at Dawn within another landscape shaped by the relationship between human activity and the physical environment.

How to get there

The Codrico factory is on Katendrecht at Rijnhaven Zuidzijde 15, 3072 AJ Rotterdam, beside the Rijnhaven and close to Fenix. From Rijnhaven metro station, you can walk towards Katendrecht via Brede Hilledijk and Veerlaan; the site is also within walking distance of the restaurants and cafés around Deliplein.