Sasja Hagens is an artist living and working in Rotterdam. The dynamics of the harbour are her great inspiration. The steel, concrete and glass of industrial landscapes are the perfect outlets for her large-scale pieces. She has just published PART OF ROTTERDAM, a retrospective of her work.
Her oeuvre is an ode to the city and port of Rotterdam and produces a colorful book in which the Maas forms the basis of almost every work. Ships come and go, tankers are cleaned, while construction sites in the center are transformed into stately avenues. With the book, Hagens provides insight into her perspective, process, and working method.
Her work has been exhibited in both Europe and Asia in museums, galleries and in art fairs. These include the Rotterdam Maritime Museum. Her painting Saipem 7000 is part of Maritime Masterpieces. An exhibition in the Maritime Museum that brings together artworks from two unique art collections. It contains works from the collections of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and the Maritime Museum Rotterdam.
The museums want to let visitors get to know the stories behind an as yet unknown maritime world, through works of art of significant historical value. The exhibition tells the stories of shipping and ports and the people who live there through six centuries of art and painting, with a unique collection ranging from Hieronymus Bosch, Willem van de Velde the Elder, Guido van der Werve, Claude Monet, Paul Signac, Hendrik Avercamp and Dolf Henkes next to Hagens’ work.
Sasja Hagens was selected for the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague in 1992, she graduated in 1996. Since then, she has exhibited her work in Hong Kong, Basel, Helsinki and Milan. She also had a successful solo show at The Duolun Museum of Modern Art (MoMa) in Shanghai. Her work has been purchased by Deloitte, AKD Advocaten, ECT Rotterdam, Deloitte The Netherlands ABN AMRO, Arcadis, Damen Shipyards and City Hall Rotterdam.
Photo: Peter Korff
