Biography
Thea Booijink is a contemporary self-taught artist, rooted in the Netherlands and based in the Algarve, Portugal. Her work explores the intuitive language of the nature that surrounds her, emerging from a sustained engagement with the landscape of the Algarve hinterland, where she lives and works.
Her practice is an evolving dialogue with nature, where she seeks to capture the essence of her experience rather than its literal representation. Daily contact with nature generates ideas that accumulate, overlap, and transform over time. These are not translated literally; instead, they are absorbed and reconfigured into a visual language that moves between figuration and abstraction. What remains is not a specific place, but a distilled sensation of it, translated in abstract paintings. Her paintings and drawings invite viewers to look beyond the surface, connecting with the emotional narratives embedded in each brushstroke.
She approaches painting as a process of extraction. It is internalised and re-emerges as compositions that balance structure with spontaneity. Utilising a tactical, mixed-media process—layering acrylics, black gesso, heavy charcoal, and ink—she captures the fleeting, internal echoes of an environment in flux. Her intuitive process of action and reaction results in physically textured surfaces that invite the viewer into an intimate, concentrated encounter with atmospheric translation. Although within abstract art, her work resists fixed categorisation. Even at its most abstract, it retains a connection to the natural world, a trace of something seen, felt, and reimagined. Each painting becomes part of an ongoing investigation, where perception and memory intertwine, and where the landscape is continuously redefined from within.
Group Exhibitions
2026 | Upcoming Exhibition: November, Looma Art, Lisboa
2026 | Upcoming Exhibition: October 3 – 4 November, Galeria Canto & Serra, Portimão
2026 | O Meu Imaginário, Looma Art, Amilak Espaço de Arte, Lisboa, Portugal
2025 | Pausa, Republica 14, Olhão, Algarve, Portugal.
2025 | Algures, Museu do Traje, São Bras de Alportel, Algarve, Portugal.
2025 | Planeta Azul, Museu Portimão, Algarve, Portugal.
Solo Presentations
2022 | O fio de Ariadne, open studio, Odelouca Valley, Algarve, Portugal
2020 | Without Words, open studio, Odelouca Valley, Algarve, Portugal.
Articles exhibition Planeta Azul in museum of Portimão
Entdecken Sie Algarve: BLAUER PLANET | Ein Weckruf zum Schutz der Ozeane: Starke Bilder, klare Botschaft:gemeinsam für die Erde
The Portugal Resident: “Beautiful, meaningful and blue, PLANETA AZUL is a collaborative wonder at Portimão Museum“.
Gallery
Represented by Zephyr Art Gallery Silves, Algarve, Portugal.
Network
Member of the Algarve Artist Network
Private Collections
Works held in private collections across the Netherlands, Germany, France and Portugal.
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