During her study at the art academy Annelies van Dooren (Eindhoven, 1942-2008) is strongly impressed by the Flemish expres-sionists such as Constant Permeke, Gust de Smet en Gustave van de Woestyne and also by Pieter Breughel, Jeroen Bosch, Vincent van Gogh and Hendrik Chabot. Her meeting with and her remaining strong friendship with the German poetess and artist, Christel Bergmann meant a true spiritual enrichment for van Dooren; poetry, filosophy and the German expressionists like Käthe Kollwitz and Paula Modersohn-Becker enlarged and deepened het fountains of inspiration. Untill 1980 she produ-ces water colours and paintings in which the expressionistic part is far more important than the purely esthetic side. In 1980 she tears apart a sack which  contained a head of lettuce. She paints that sack and then starts painting flour sacks from the bakery as well as pieces of cotton. Lateron she also starts making objects. Compassion with humanity, that was shown in her watercolours before,  is now turned towards the Earth, to the fundament of life, growth, desperation, life and death. Her theme moves towards the numinous,  the divine, to that by which one is fascinated and which makes one tremble. Annelies van Dooren; “The earth, all objects and man are made of cosmic dust and connected with it, are a part of it. The numinous is given a form in religion and art, in rites and myth,  thus in images.   Denying the mystery leads to denying the value of existence, to lovelessness and to the use of force. Spirit and Love are the bearers of inspiration ans hence they form the Soul of Matter. Otherwise you have empty esthetics and senseless art.  Art serves an elementary goal which is  to give meaning to life. That’s why I am an Expressionist.