In 2017, Loes Koomen swapped her successful career for her first love: abstract painting. Biting color combinations that both attract and repel one another and shapes that seem to fight for priority (or do they just want to stand alone?) are like silent witnesses of Koomen’s ideas of freedom and the right to be different. Her work shows the resilience needed to persevere. The contrast between the perfection of the round forms on the one hand and the irregularities in the sometimes gritty paint treatment on the other, refer to the human imperfection from which the work derives its ‘soul’ and energy. Qualities that make her paintings irresistible. MK