Dorothea Berkhout’s artistic journey has transported her to two different and praiseworthy avenues of creation. She commenced her aesthetic explorations in the primary years of her life honing her painting prowess but then turned much of her attention to music. Berkhout’s recent return to her old craft can be attributed to a torrent of inspiration originating from her Dutch heritage. She honors this cultural stimulus, and the famed masters who honed this craft, by illustrating robust, vibrant motifs manipulating light and shadow to illuminate the objects she paints and exhibiting realistic images and perspectives through the medium of oil. These qualities are exhibited brilliantly in her featured still life, “Sorrento Lemons”, which utilizes the intensifying effects of oil colors to irradiate the bright yellows of the rotund citrus fruits whilst granting the shadows flanking them an equally arresting sense of visual presence. Berkhout’s unquestionable passion for nature, scenery, and figures is more than self-evident to all of those who are fortunate enough to view her portfolio. For this reason, Alfa Art gallery is always honored to feature her effervescent and masterful works of art.

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Artist Statement

I began painting at a young age, but turned my attention to music, and I have now returned to painting over the past few years.  My paintings exhibit a realistic approach and perspective. I prefer to paint with oils as they provide me the ability to intensify my paintings and my subjects by layering the paint and increasing depth.

I have a passion for nature and love to paint still lives, scenery, and figures.  Having traveled nationally and internationally, my paintings render the beauty, balance, and order that I have seen and attempt to express.   I have been inspired by my painting teacher, Anna Neis in Princeton, New Jersey, and I look forward to painting for many years.




New Brunswick Art Salon 2016 Part II Watercolor and Mixed Media Exhibition


TRAINING AND INFLUENCES

  • Calvin College   L’université de Montpellier, France  
  • B.A.University of Southern California  
  • M.A.French Language and Literature, Ohio University  
  • Ph.D.Comparative Literature, Ohio University
  • Dissertation: “The Development of a Structuralist Poetics of Reading: From Russian Formalism to Roland Barthes”

 

BOARD MEMBERSHIPS, CIVIC AND OTHER ACTIVITIES

Commissioner, Parks and Gardens Commission, New Brunswick, New Jersey (January 2016 – present).

President, Board of Directors, One Spring Street Condominium Association (January 2014 – present)


Member, Board of Directors, New Brunswick City Market, Inc. (2000 – 2007 and 2013 – present)

Member, Board of Directors, and co-chair, House Management Committee, Springdale Golf Club, Princeton, New Jersey (2009 – 2014)

Chair, Personnel Subcommittee, and member, Transition Task Force, Consolidation of Princeton Borough & Township  (2012)

Member, Board of Directors, New Brunswick State Theater, New Brunswick, NJ (2000 – 2007)

PUBLICATIONS

New Brunswick, New Jersey: The Decline and Revitalization of Urban America (co-authored book, Rutgers University Press, 2016).

ART EXHIBITIONS

“New Brunswick Art Salon Part II:  Watercolor and Mixed Media,” Alfa Art Gallery, New Brunswick, New Jersey, July 8– August 20, 2016.