Al-Mutanabbi Street starts here 2012
Gwendolyn van Essen, Netherlands
| Gwendolyn van Essen,
Groningen, The Netherlands, December 2012 My books are very much inspired by the process of working itself and what I was thinking during the process. How in a symbolic way the bombing took place and how I could express this in my work and in what manner. I simply vividly imagined how the pages should be drawn together. The pages were thus being drawn together in one book like they were put together again. In the other two I visualised the same thing by drawing into the pages. The third book has an inside folded out paper of a drawing and threads through the paper. What you are able to visualise through this into the pages is my way of remembering what had happened. The books were thus made by my own hands and the paper consists of old cloth and paper. I worked on it with brown ink which I usually use in my work. The covers around the books were also sewn and embroidered and ink dyed cloth put on to it to symbolize the attack on al-Mutanabbi Street. Everything I visualised was like it was put together again afterwards; after the attack and I visualized what is must have felt like: the smoke, the blood of the people, the anguish, the tears and the anger about it all. Dimensions: Letter size Medium: paper, cloth, ink, threads Born in the Netherlands. 'I come out of an artistic family, artists as well as writers.' Exhibitions took place mainly in the Netherlands but also in Germany; in musea, galleries, as well as public buildings. Gwendolyn van Essen makes drawings, watercolour and oil paintings, graphics and art-books. Characteristics of her work are its austerity and its simplicity. Stylising of forms is important. She favours round forms. The drawings in exist out of many layers on paper. The drawings are made with India ink and ink in different colours with pen, bamboo pen and brush on paper. To put down the form in one line is the basis of the drawing. The artist is led by free associations. The work is characterised by expression and spirituality and is sometimes enchanting and poetic. The recreation of visual reality is less important then the artists thoughts or feelings, which is shown by its use of form and colour. Characteristics of the style in general are the use of bright colours and of simplified forms. www.gwendolynvanessen.nl |