MoniqueBASTIANS
Monique Bastiaans
The work of Monique Bastiaans (Belgium, 1954) stems from a profound dialogue with nature and a radical sensitivity to the vital energy that inhabits it. Educated in Belgium and the Netherlands—where she lived until 1988, the year she arrived in Spain—her career has been sustained for decades by the search for an organic, almost pulsating language that celebrates the natural élan while simultaneously warning of the fragility of ecosystems in the face of biodiversity loss.
Her practice—ranging from monumental installations to ephemeral interventions—is characterized by the introduction of playful elements into everyday landscapes, generating poetic tensions that, far from blending in, establish such an intimate relationship with the environment that they seem to emerge from it. Bastiaans understands public and natural space as a territory where the work is not only displayed, but also breathes, mutates, and exerts an influence. For this reason, she is recognized for her permanent sculptures, large-scale interventions, and temporary actions carried out for city councils, institutions, and public buildings.
Since her first solo exhibition in Utrecht in 1982, her work has been featured in biennials, galleries, museums, and art centers within and beyond Spain, consolidating a personal language that unites the organic, the sensory, and the critical within a shared aesthetic root.
In 2025, the Ministry of Culture of Spain acquired one of her works to be permanently installed in the gardens of the Lázaro Galdiano Museum in Madrid, further strengthening the artist’s institutional presence.
In collaboration with Red House Art, Bastiaans has created a site-specific installation for the renovated Kimpton Los Monteros 5*GL in Marbella, reopened in 2025. The work, titled “(And They Understood)”, unfolds her naturalistic universe through a contemporary lens, integrating seamlessly with the hotel’s architecture and contributing her signature touch, where playfulness, vitality, and ecological reflection coexist with elegance. This project reaffirms Red House Art’s commitment to high-quality public art and to supporting artists who transform spaces through emotion and aesthetic experience.
