Abraham Leendert van den Hooven was born in 1910 in Zuidland, a Dutch province in the South of the Netherlands. He was originally a cook on merchant sailing ships and sailed as far away as the Spice Islands.

After WW2, his family emigrated to Venezuela and stayed until 1957, just before the 1958 coup d’état. The van den Hooven family moved once again from Holland to settle in Australia in 1959.

Upon his retirement there in the late 1960s, he commenced as a self-taught artist and surrounded himself with his own artworks. Prior to this there was no art displayed in the household.

In 1951, Margarita Rosa van den Hooven was born in Petaré, Venezuela. She turned 6 on the boat (Montserrat) to Australia. Margarita first remembers painting on the easels in the painting room at Bonegilla Hostel not long after arriving in Victoria, then later with better quality art materials in primary and secondary school. She then went on to study a tertiary education in fine art.

It is from these family roots that a new generation developed an appreciation for fine art and design. Margarita’s son Leslie was born in 1977. Leslie has revered art and design ever since a very young age, admiring artists such as Vincent van Gogh and Pablo Picasso.

Leslie has returned to a creative calling after recently completing two separate diplomas in graphic design (2016) and illustration (2018). Having chosen the colour orange to honour a primarily Dutch ancestry, Leslie has constructed a unique, recognisable style of art, subsequently fashioned into an exclusive art brand.