Orphaned 'rags'
Treasure digging at thrift stores in the Netherlands. The most beautiful items pass by, a jacket from Desigual, a vintage bag from Fred de la Bretonniere and Piquadro, very sweet skirts from King Louis. It is whole, clean, of good quality but abandoned.
My orphaned 'rags'. I include them in my collection and take them to rural Spain where throwing away good clothes has not yet become a daily ritual. There I treat them lovingly. I mend a button, close a seam, smooth the creases.
They will leave me again and embrace another owner. Like Linda enjoying the leather of the Piquadro bag and gently caressing it. Or Vanessa swinging around in her new ruffled tulle skirt.
I will miss them, my found treasures and so I photograph them to keep them with me that way. I treat the photos as lovingly as I treat the “rags,” adding a button, embroidering and making them sparkle again.
Waarom Smart by Art? Je wordt slimmer door kunst; door er naar te kijken, te luisteren, te ervaren en door het zelf te maken.
Simone Henken
Hanna B Lou
The royal jewel
A rose is called Royal Jewel. Royalty and jewels appeal to the imagination and I dream away to royal palaces decorated with gold, velvet, precious paintings and murals.
I think of the annual royal reception in Holland where citizens are allowed to attend in the presence of the royal family.
Of course prinses Beatrix of the Netherlands is a Royal Jewel and her broche is definitely a royal jewel as well.
Christa, Eve, Johanna, Mary M. and Mary with lam
What would the world have looked liked if Jezus Christ had been a woman?
The garden path
In this work I have incorporated Polaroids - an old photographic process - that landscapes depict Dutch peasant life as I know it from my childhood: the fields, the farms, the berries, the animals. They breathe nostalgia and are refined. The shapes are poetic and exhibit the soft, creamy structure that is characteristic of Polaroid and the colors are in harmony with each other.
The background, the passe-partout, is from a different art movement. Coarser, wilder. Wild paint strokes like those of the paint gorilla Karel Appel, who literally threw his paint onto the canvas. Not with a brush. Karel went to war with paint rollers and putty knives or threw the paint directly from the bucket onto the canvas.
The colors are silver and gray like the steel and reflective glass from which the towers are made. And the shapes are blocks like the prefabricated blocks with which modern buildings are constructed.
The frame is covered with newspaper articles. The news is all around us. Invades via TV, telephone, newspaper and internet. The news is about conflict, disagreement, danger and aggression. And if it is positive, it is sensational. There will never be a message like: “Thankfully nothing exciting happened today. Everything was satisfactory.” We find that contented world in that small space in the center of the image.
John is dead, don't let him die
Commissioned by Remastered Art, I made new work based on a portrait of an unknown man that was photographed around 1900.
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