My work Reconstruction of Love is included in De Grote Nederlandse Kunstkalender 2025 a.k.a. The Big Dutch Art Calender 2025.
December 6, 2025 is my day…
De Grote Nederlandse Kunstkalender
Station to Station to Station available in New York Public Library
‘My Grandma is a Rose’ at BioArt Laboratories as part of Dutch Design Week
🌹 We are honoured to introduce the 77th participant of The Symbiocene Forest, Roots 2025: Lenny Waasdorp with the intimate and poetic project My Grandma is a Rose 🕊️🌱
Lenny’s grandmother, Helena Maria Waasdorp-Kienjet, passed away on September 4, 2002, at the age of 88. For two decades, a rosebush stood rooted at her grave, drawing nourishment from the soil and, with it, the organic essence of a life once lived. When the grave was cleared in 2024, Lenny carefully transplanted the rose into her own garden.
In collaboration with microscopist Rob van Es, Lenny created microscope slides of the rose’s vein, root, flower and stem. These were then photographed, revealing the intricate cell structures of a plant that had become more than just flora — a living archive of memory, biology, and love.
🧬 “When I see the cell structures of the rose, I’m looking at my grandmother’s DNA.”
Through this deeply personal work, Lenny blurs the boundaries between human and plant, ancestry and growth, mourning and transformation.
More about the artist:
🌐 lennywaasdorp.nl
📸 @lalenny_
Roots 2025 can be visited at BioArt Laboratories as part of the Dutch Design Week from October 18-26.
‘Widzę cię’ (I See You)
Widzę cię (I See You) is the exhibition curated by Professor, curator and artist Krzysztof Mazur who lives and works in Biskupice, Poland. He organises artists’ meetings with a different theme every year, for 2025 this is ‘Widzę cię’ (I See You). The exhibitioin which follows the artists meeting is held this year in Dwor Artusa in Toruń, Poland.
My contribution is called I Don’t See You (scroll down)…
Title: ‘I Don’t See You’.
Medium: Oil & acryl paint on linen.
Size: 65 x 75 cm
Representation of any gender and sex is so important. The (art) world changes, inclusivity becomes more and more an important theme. The position of the female artist is catching up. But if we continue to do so in this speed, they will have the same possibilities as male artist around 2050. We have to speed up.
In the 2014 revised editions of the art bibles ‘The Story of Art’ (1961) and ‘History of Art’ (1962) which are widely used in art education, 5 percent of the artists mentioned in the books are women. In the original editions from the 1960s, this figure was even zero (!).
Source: ‘Een nog onverteld verhaal. Verkennend onderzoek naar gender (on)gelijkheid in de kunstwereld.’ Een publicatie van Stichting WOMEN Inc. 2022. (‘An untold Story. Exploratory research on gender (in)equality in the art world.’ A publication of the foundation WOMEN Inc. 2022).
Female artists can’t stand on any female artists shoulders. Not because they are not there, but because they don’t have the same chances and they are not documented in the art HIS-story books.
Widzę cię opened at Saturday August 30 at Dwor Artusa in Toruń, Poland. A catalogue will follow.
Curating at De Aanschouw, Rotterdam
Curating the best artists from Leiden in the smallest biggest gallery of the Netherlands. Together with Frida van der Poel we presented: Mary Geradts, Roos-Marijn van Kinkel, Miriam de Koning and Resi van der Ploeg @ De Aanschouw @ Café HensePeter, Nieuwe Binnenweg, Rotterdam. Again such a pleasure…
Catalogue Wdech – Wydech
Sold!
At Veiling De Aanschouw
A diptych from the series Reconstruction of Love is sold at Veiling De Aanschouw in Het Wilde Weten, Rotterdam.
Leidsch Dagblad
Journalist Theo de With wrote an article about the exhibition Reconstruction of Love, now on show in galerie Zône in Leidsch Dagblad. Published on December 7, 2024.
Exhibition at galerie Zône
From December 1st till December 29 the body of work Reconstruction of Love will be on show at galerie Zône, Nieuwstraat 17b, Leiden. The exhibition will be opened by artist Petra Nicole at December 1st at 14.00 hrs. Poet Pink Meltzer wrote a FEMMAGE and will dedicate it to Lenny Waasdorp at the opening.
Cultuur071: Sleutelstad radio
November 23, 2024. Interview and article by Malinda Clouder on Sleutelstad FM.
Intieme installatie in Galerie Zône: Mijn oma is een roos
Leiden, 25 november 2024 om 15:27 uur door Malinda Clouder
Kunstenaar Lenny Waasdorp presenteert in december een unieke installatie in Galerie Zône in Leiden. ‘Mijn oma is een roos’ vertelt het verhaal van haar grootmoeder Helena Maria Waasdorp-Kienjet, verweven met de schoonheid van een rozenstruik die op haar graf groeide.
Na twintig jaar werd het graf van Waasdorps grootmoeder geruimd. De rozenstruik die zich gedurende die periode voedde met de bodem van het graf, werd door Lenny naar haar tuin verplaatst. Samen met microscopist Rob van Es creëerde ze microscoop-preparaten van de nerf, wortel en stengel van de struik. Deze werden vervolgens gefotografeerd en vormen de basis voor een intieme installatie. “De roos en mijn oma zijn diep met elkaar verbonden” vertelt Waasdorp. “Het voelt alsof ik naar het DNA van mijn grootmoeder kijk.”
Tijdens de tentoonstelling worden ook andere werken gepresenteerd, zoals de Klaarkommen van Pink Meltzer en Peter Visser. De expositie opent op zondag 1 december om 14.00 uur. Kunstenaar Petra Nicole verricht de officiële opening, terwijl dichter Pink Meltzer haar Femmage zal voordragen.
Galerie Zône zoekt nieuwe leden
Volgens Frida van der Poel, vertegenwoordiger van Galerie Zône, is de galerie volop in beweging. Naast de lopende projecten en exposities is de galerie op zoek naar nieuwe leden. “Vooral meubelmakers en kunstenaars die werken met glas zijn van harte welkom”, zegt Van der Poel.
Galerie Zône biedt een inspirerende plek waar kunstenaars hun werk kunnen tonen en een netwerk kunnen opbouwen. Geïnteresseerden worden uitgenodigd om contact op te nemen met de galerie, gelegen in het hart van Leiden, bekend om haar innovatieve en diverse kunstprojecten.
Wdech – Wydech
In July I was in Poland for an Artist in Residence and visited the Planta Artistic Cultivation center in the village of Biskupice. Professor, curator and artist Krzysztof Mazur lives and works there on a beautifully renovated farm with a large workshop and vegetable garden. He organises artists’ meetings with a different theme every year, for 2024 this is ‘Wdech – Wydech’, or: ‘Breathe in, breathe out’.
The Planta meetings have an artistic, scientific and social character. The day I was there started with a singing bowl concert, followed by a breathing workshop and an extensive lunch in the open air. The afternoon was set aside to exchange ideas about the theme based on submitted work.
Next week, the works of art created following this Planta meeting will be presented in the Artus Court Cultural Center Gallery in Toruń, Leiden’s twincity.
I am very honored to be part of this group exhibition. The vernissage is Tuesday, November 5, 6:00 PM.
Participating artists are: Uczestnicy wystawy: Katarzyna Adaszewska, Witold Bargiel, Satabdi Titi, Jakub Biewald, Dorota Grubba-Thiede, Elżbieta Jabłońska, Jacek Jagielski, Łukasz Jagielski, Sebastian Kłosowski, Anna Kola, Stanisław Kośmiński, Iwona Liegmann, Ala Majewska , Tomasz Matusewi cz, Krzysztof Mazur, Małgorzata Mazur, Barbara Pilch, Rafał Sławnikowski, Aleksandra Sojak-Borodo, Matylda Sutuła, Laura Szymoniuk, Miłosz Thiede, Lenny Waasdorp, Maria Warzocha, Małgorzata Wawrzak, Maciej Wierzbicki, Małgorzata Wojnowska-Heller, Marek Zach arski.
My contribution of the show exists of a diptych of two framed photos.
Title: Smell the Rose, Blow out the Candle
Tytuł: Powąchaj różę, zdmuchnij świeczkę
In Buddhist studies, sati is an important path to enlightenment.
Sati can be translated as conscious attention. The goal is
focusing conscious attention on the body and thus taming it
mind. Smelling a rose and blowing out a candle is one of hers
many exercises.
Artificial Intelligence advice on painting
In July this year I was invited to a painter Artist in Residence in Barbarka, Poland. Since it had been a while since I had painted, I asked Artificial Intelligence (AI) for advice.
Prompt: ‘Hello AI, I have been invited to paint during an Artist in Residence in Poland. However, it has been years since I have actually painted. What to do?‘
AI: ‘Congratulations on the invitation. These weeks are usually intended for exchanging and experimenting. Other artists will likely be willing to share their knowledge and techniques with you. Focus on these things and not on the end result. Hopefully you have a valuable and inspiring experience in Poland!‘
I certainly did and I followed AI’s advice. As a starting point for experimenting, I took the afterimages that the Polish sun left on my retina. The (provisional) result: six panels of 23 x 33 cm and two canvases of 40 x 50 cm.
