Madeleine Bonde Hatz, born 19 mars 1952 in Lund, Parish of Lund Cathedral, Skåne is a swedish painter and performance artist. She is the daughter of artist Felix Hatz and archeologist Ingel Bonde-Hatz. She was educated at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm 1975 to 1980. Madeleine Hatz has been active on the New York art scene for 3 decades, and she has also worked as an artist in China in periods in the 2010s. She is represented at the Moderna museet in Stockholm and at the Nationalmuseum in the same city,as well as at Kalmar konstmuseum and Reading Public Museum, West Reading, Pennsylvania. She was awarded the Einar Forseth Prize 2012. Madeleine Hatz

Madeleine Hatz, educated at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm from 1975 –1980, has been active on the New York art scene for more than three decades and has been showing in galleries and museums in Europe. Her abstract paintings, often large-format, have grainy textures and thick layers of paint. Their surface is evocative of the crust of the earth seen from an airplane window, or of clouds, trees, or building rubble. Madeleine Hatz’s painting can be described as simultaneously violent and introspective, reckless and controlled. This play between opposites is evident in the painting Black Angel (2004), for example, where a furious storm is raging, while at the same time a liberating sense of calm is spreading. Her work has always been characterized by this tension between two poles: the active and the contemplative. As the world’s political climate hardened in the early 2000’s, she expanded her practice towards activism and performance, often at personal risk. She has made street actions at Tiananmen Square and Rockefeller Center as well as other places. At Tiananmen Square she walked barefoot past the gate to the Forbidden City in a tattered monk’s robe. At Rockefeller Center, at the height of the Iraq War, the fountains turned blood red. In these provocative acts there is, at the same time, a poetic dimension, just as in the paintings. “Songs from the Underground” at The Royal Academy of Arts, Stockholm in 2017 was the most comprehensive exhibition of Madeleine Hatz’s work to date. Gathered were paintings from New York and Sweden as well as film clips of her performances, street actions, and contemplative studio work from 2000–2017.

Written by Sophie Allgardh