Beyond Reality

About this activity.

Three exhibitors create their own version of reality.
You are warmly invited to this wonderful exhibition!

Hedy Abeling         Contemporary Ceramics
As a contemporary artist, Hedy Abeling (1965) creates sculptures that fascinate through their layered symbolism and craftsmanship. She crafts human and animal figures that radiate a sense of calm, mindfulness, and strength, inviting the viewer to pause for a moment. Countless thoughts, memories, associations, and insights arise during the creative process. She flows with this process; her figures seem to emerge from a dream world, reaching for the soulfulness that has become buried in our own world. Their often introspective aura reveals contradictions: the gentle is never far from the raw. Her ceramic sculptures explore the human inner world and the outer world, examining their apparent contrasts and the dialogue between them. The sculptures are crafted from stoneware clay (sometimes in multiple colors) and feature a rough surface, often treated with engobe or texture. Working in series allows her to achieve greater depth, both conceptually and visually.
Hedy works part-time as a teacher of visual arts and design in secondary education and at the Keramiek Academie Noord Nederland (Ceramics Academy of the Northern Netherlands).

Wouter Berns          Quasi-realist, but above all a ‘Storypainter’
Wouter Berns (1970) is a storyteller in paint—a ‘storypainter.’ He transports the viewer to a seemingly familiar world, yet one with a surreal or unsettling twist. Unimaginable, perhaps, but rarely impossible. His paintings depict a poetic reimagining of reality—one that offers a fresh perspective—and invite reflection on personal questions and issues of social critique. He draws his subjects from literature, mythology, music, film, and the world around him. A curiosity about people and how they relate to one another resonates throughout his work. Between painting sessions, he frequently sits at his laptop to continue writing where his paintings leave off.
Master of Realism
Although a realistic painting style is not so much an end in itself for Wouter Berns as a means of imaginative expression, he has been admitted to the *Meesters van het Realisme* (Masters of Realism). This is a collective of contemporary artists who practice realistic painting at the highest level.
Since 2012, he has been affiliated with the *QuasiRealisten* (Quasi-Realists), an artist group that gives a personal and uncanny twist to realism and draws inspiration from movements such as symbolism, surrealism, and magical realism.
In 2025 and 2026, he ranked among the top 100 most highly regarded living Dutch artists. The "Artist of the Year" is selected from this list annually; he has also been nominated for this honorary title for 2027.

Bernard Divendal        Clarity, Color & Structure
For Bernard Divendal (b. 1952), the essence of painting has long been an intuitive yet formal approach to the images that present themselves. Clarity and structure are of fundamental importance in this process. At the same time, there is room for (non-romantic) adventure and for drastic interventions to resolve issues that arise while painting. All this is done with the aim of making an abstract drama of form and color visible—and, on another level, of creating order, if only for a moment, out of the chaos inherent in human existence.
In 2019, after a long period spent primarily creating installations and spatial works, he returned to the foundation of his artistic practice: painting. About the creative process:
He begins by sketching lines in charcoal on the white canvas. Once the resulting forms feel right, he starts the actual painting process. He calls this style of painting ‘intuitive formalism’. His work bears no direct connection to observable reality, though viewers are, of course, free to make such connections through their own associations. In addition to oil paintings, the exhibition will feature works on paper and several objects from the ‘Frames’ series.

Exhibition details:
•    Dates:            Wed. 23 Sept. – Sun. 25 Oct. 2026

•    Exhibition opening:        Sun. 27 Sept. 2026 at 4:00 PM

•    Opening hours:        Wed. through Sun., 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM

•    Free admission

Galerie Forma Aktua.

Al decennia lang functioneert Forma Aktua Pinakotheek als een platform voor al het opkomend talent in Noord-Nederland. Tegelijk volgt de galerie ook de ontwikkelingen in de wereld van de reeds meer gevestigde kunstenaars op de voet.

Location.

Forma Aktua
Nieuwstad 10
tel 050 3133342
www.forma-aktua.nl/