Montana Engels Contemporary artist from Belgium

Montana Engels is a young female Belgian artist who has invented her own innovative way of portrait painting. Using only stripes, Montana creates a realistic portrait that looks abstract up close, but becomes more detailed once people step back from the painting. The play of shadow, light and line thickness make her work so complex. Behind every stripe is a masterful thought process in which Montana takes into account the next stripe as well as her previous stripe. This unique “STRIPED” concept is Montana's signature style.

For years she perfected her portraits to then develop her stripe style with a lot of trial & error, first on paper, then on canvas, she started her first striped portrait on canvas with the painting “GiGi”. Montana carefully thinks out her compositions as well as her colors. Each of her works is accompanied by a study of light and shadow, a color matching process and many sketches to bring the image Montana has in mind onto canvas.

Not every line will be perfect, just like in life, not every decision will be perfect, but when you trust the process, adjust where needed and keep on going on, you will see that in the bigger picture, it will all make sense.
In her work, Montana magnifies her struggle with perfectionism, where she always looks her it right in the eye, with every painting. She deliberately never works with a ruler or anything to make her straight lines. Here she embraces the fact that not every line will be perfectly striaght, but that this gives her work all the more character up close and shows that it is indeed very much, painted by hand. Her works are thoughtfully painted down to the smallest details, when the viewer gets closer they see that there are often many different color lines in between.

Montana's subjects always provide a form of “edge” by carefully conveying an intriguing story in the eyes, posture and subject. Montana puts women at the center of her works, every time in their full elegance and power. Her strong empathy and passion for psychology translate onto canvas by being able to portray incredibly striking gazes by painting only stripes. With her intensive work rhythm, unique style and color theory research, she makes this original technique her own and hereby brings her groundbreaking visual language to the art world.

Brand collaborations

Montana often collaborates with big brands, to create a unique eyecatcher, product, experienc, etc. These are some of the brands she collaborated with: MAC cosmetics, Disney, Aston Martin, Playstation, Tomorrowland, MINI, The national Lottery, Sherathon, Qmusic, Jägermeister, Lolaliza, Bombay Sapphire, Gaston Luga, Tao, Binck Bank, Deme, Suspicious Antwerp, Antwerp Diamond museum, and many many more...
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Portrait painting

Montana developped her unique STRIPED style, after years of mastering portraits. Special about her STRIPE style is that a detailed portrait is portrayed, consisting of only handpainted stripes. Making the paintings look abstract from up close but more detailed when one steps back. Each stroke demonstrates a masterful thought process in which Montana considers both the next and the previous stroke and emphasises in each work the handmade quality to this time consuming technique.
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After Montana's experience at Belgium's Got talent she was overwhelmed by the uncountable positive reactions. Her giant 'glue and glitter' portrait of Michael Jackson that she made In 2 minutes on tv, was a big succes (see it here).  Now Montana perfomes different portait speedpaintings at events, shows and parties as a grand act.  She can make any portrait live and infront of an audience, in just minutes. Great as a surprise act!
More info or bookings: montana@montanaengels.eu
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Are you interested in one of the artworks or a commission?  
Montana accepts Art inquiries for original works of art.
Price will depend on desired size and complexity of the work.
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