In astrology elements such as water, earth, fire and air, are used to describe someone’s personality. Many ancient cultures were also familiar with the four elements. They used the terms to explain complex and dynamic processes in nature, to grasp them in more elementary terms, as simpler comprehensible substances.
Nowadays, if one thinks about elements, the periodic table is the first thing that pops up in our mind; it lists more than one hundred substances that are the primary constituents of matter. Each one defined and distinguished from the other by its atomic number.
Elements can also refer to the weather, especially bad weather as “fighting against the elements”. Or refer to the heater as a part of an electric teapot.
For this Perennial Art exhibition at Kunsthalle Hilsbach, curators B.C. Epker and Witte Wartena brought together eight international artists, all in a different stage of their career. They all come from a different cultural background and speak different languages. All use elementary (essential and characteristic) visual elements to build up their images. While one artist is using more personal or autobiographic elements, the other is using more formal or abstract; sometimes in a straightforward and spontaneous way, and other times more deductive or experimental.

No matter from which angle, the artist is always focusing on what is essential and whether the elements in the artwork work.
 

..... the artists presenting themselves .
 

Witte Wartena was born in 1976 in Amsterdam, he spent his childhood drawing in his bedroom. Unaware that a famous Dutch cartoonist had lived there, during WWII. Perhaps the atmosphere of this room explains why he has been inspired by comic-books. Wartena studied in Enschede where he received a BA from the AKI and in Edinburgh he got his Masters from the ECA (2006). In 2010 he did a residency in Berlin and stayed in the city for the next decade. He has exhibited at institutions such as De Vishal, Haarlem, Park Place Gallery, New York, Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort, The Drawing Hub, Berlin, Museum Waterland, Purmerend, HALLE 14, Baumwollspinnerei, Leipzig and SNUT, Seoul. In 2016 he was nominated for the Foire Internationale du Dessin (FID) and in 2020 for the Derwent Art Prize.

As an ‘embedded reporter’ he wants to report on his daily life through cityscapes, (group) portraits, interiors and still lives. The detailed registration of his memories is important to him.

Although sometimes something may seem simple at first glance, on closer inspection it often has several layers and meanings. His drawings are like a diary or photo album to record my memories of locations, moments and events. The work is neither a glorification nor a criticism, only a registration. The interpretation is up to the viewer.

www.wittewartena.nl

 

 

B.C. Epker (1968, Harlingen NL) arbeitet in die Niederlande und Zypern.
Er studierte von 1990-1996 an der AKI Academie voor beeldende kunst Enschede.

Seine Arbeiten wurden ausgestellt in u.A. Gemeentemuseum Den Haag (2006); Fries Museum Leeuwarden (2006); Museum für Druckkunst, Leipzig (2020);; HALLE 14 - Zentrum für zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig (2013); Coda Museum Apeldoorn (2011); Stedelijk Museum Schiedam (2011); GEM Den Haag (2010); Museum Belvédère Heerenveen (2018/9); Dordrechts Museum (2016).

Seine Arbeiten befinden in Sammlungen von u.A. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam; Gemeentemuseum Den Haag; Koninklijke Bibliotheek Den Haag; Fries Museum Leeuwarden; Letter Stiftung Köln (DE); Sparkasse Leipzig (DE); Stadtmuseum Borken (DE); Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken Den Haag und Kunstmuseum Ilulissat (GR). 

Epker hat verschiedene Stipendia bekommen von Mondriaanfonds Amsterdam und Fonds BKVB Amsterdam und hat in 2006 den Gerrit Benner Prijs voor Beeldende Kunst bekommen. 

Er ist regelmässig Gastdozent an verschiedene Kunstakademien wie Aki/Artez Academie voor Beeldende Kunst Enschede; KABK, Koninklijke Academie Beeldende Kunst Den Haag und Academie Minerva Groningen. Auch war er Gastdozent an der Technische Universität Dortmund (Seminar für Kunst und Kunstwissenschaft) und an Masterausbildungen wie Frank Mohr Instituut (FMI Masters) Groningen und Sandberg Institute Amsterdam.

 About the drawings:

 “Red Boy” is dealing with the element water - the fishiness aspect of it to be precise… 

He fights against monstrous fish, rides on mythological fish, catches edible fish, is careful with poisonous fish, etc. It all depends on what has to be done, or what fish is on the market that week. If he wants to regain control, he makes himself a captain on a fishing boat, or a bulk carrier the week after.

Together with the poet Peter van Lier, Epker is working to produce a fanzine with this material…

www.epker.nl

 

Tatiana Ferahian is an Armenian-Cypriot visual artist born in Lebanon. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts from the Empire State College and a Master’s Degree in Liberal Arts from the University of Denver. She lives and works in Cyprus and the Netherlands.

Throughout her artistic career Ferahian has participated in a number of exhibitions and residences among which are: Beijing International Art Biennales in 2005, 2008, and 2012; Alexandria Biennale of Mediterranean Countries in 2007; diverCYty” at the Council of Europe in Strasburg in 2008; “Salad Bowl” at Taidesalonki Husa in Finland in 2009; “Freedom to Create” at Victoria & Albert Museum in London in 2009; Shingle22j Biennales of Contemporary Art in Italy in 2009, 2015 and 2017; “Out of Space” in the Netherlands in 2010; “The Little Land Fish” in Istanbul in 2010; Geumgang Art Biennale in S. Korea in 2012; I-Park's Art Biennale in Connecticut in 2013; 10th Naoussa Film Festival in 2013; Entre Lacs in France in 2014; "In search of common myth / Genius Loci" in Leeuwarden in 2018; MACAM Biennale in Lebanon in 2019 and Annual Exhibitions with the Society of Graphic Fine Arts in London in 2019 and 2021.
Ferahian’s narrative drawings are a part of a larger story about people’s relationship with their geopolitical environment. She is particularly interested in portraying historical architectures that reveal the conditions and shifts in our culture and the political influences that have shaped them. Moreover, the human-animal hybrid creatures she incorporates are archetypes from legends, folklores and fantasies placed in contemporary urban settings, giving the drawings modern mythological themes. However, she is not concerned with illustrating the literal narrative content of myths, but more with interpreting them symbolically in the context of the sociopolitical pathology that surrounds us. These images in turn create a paradox, which signify a constant dilemma; a force and a counter force, life and death, hope and despair…
At the “Elements” group exhibition in Hilsbach, Ferahian will be showing a part of her recent series of drawings called Mythopoesis; which is an artificial mythology integrated with traditional mythological elements, with the temptress Mata Hari as a central figure. 

 

 

Fernanda Figueiredo

1978, São Paulo, Brazil. Lives in Berlin.

Fernanda Figueiredo studied Architecture and Urbanism at Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie and Visual Arts at Fundação Armando Alvares Penteado in São Paulo. From 2005 on she worked actively in a collaborative duo in São Paulo, drawing and painting being the media that best reflect her artistic production. In 2015, when she moved to Berlin, she started to pursue her solo career. She began then to investigate the process of building Brazilian nationality in the 20th century and the role of visual arts, architecture, landscaping, and design in these events. She has exhibited at institutions such as MAM – Rio de Janeiro, MAM – Bahia, Galerie im Körnerpark and Kunstquartier Bethanien in Berlin; she has also received several awards, including Programa Rede Nacional Funarte de Artes Visuais, Goldrausch Künstlerinnenprojekt Stipendium from the Berliner Senat and Europäischen Sozialfonds, and from Jakob und Emma Windler-Stiftung for an artist residency in Switzerland in 2021. Her work is represented in private collections and the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in Rio de Janeiro.
Her work explores the strategies of Brasilianization that Brazilian Modernist artists applied in the formation of Brazil’s cultural identity and its relationship with European Modernist trends in the twentieth century. The transcultural operations that arose from this mediation led Brazilian people to develop a syncretic identity, which was in the foundation of the nation's future. Modernity was a feeling when the future would be faster, happier, and more developed than in the past. With acrylic paintings made essentially with Appropriations, she aims to reflect on what remains today from the promises of the Modern project in Brazil.
Compared Geometry is one of her ongoing series. It places images and materials close together for comparison or contrast. The objects of comparison are sections of shipping boxes and reproductions of iconic Concrete artworks by Brazilian artists from the 1960s. Their names come in the titles: Waldemar Cordeiro, Lygia Clark, Lygia Pape, Hélio Oiticica, Ivan Serpa, etc. These artworks, originally made with cheap materials, have become famous with time. They are now framed, glassed, and priceless in the art market. Compared Geometry brings these artworks back together with the cheap and found material reality, juxtaposing them and provoking a critical positioning on art creation and its dissemination.

www.fernandafigueiredo.com

 

 

Rosanna Staus (1994) studied illustration, fine art and tile design in Hamburg, Granada and Madrid. She lives and works in Berlin.

 

 

Aafke Ytsma (1988) is a Dutch artist born in Voorburg. She has studied Fine Art at ArtEZ hogeschool voor de kunsten, Zwolle, the Netherlands 2007-2011. She frequently combines travel with art, as with the project Walk of Art(2014) which was a solo hike of five month from the north of the Netherlands to Nice, where she captured the landscape along the way in 78 watercolours. Currently based in Leipzig working both at home and abroad.

 

Machteld van Buren  has studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and the Rijksacademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. She makes paintings, drawings and collages. In recent years she has had solo exhibitions in melklokaal in Heerenveen: What does your soul look like (2016) and Quantum jump (2020). Some years ago she showed the collage series Circus Europe in Ennistymon (Ireland), Kristiansand (Norway), Zagreb (Croatia) and Brussels (Belgium). She received nominations for the Mama Cash Kunstprijs, the Koninklijke Subsidie voor Vrije Schilderkunst and the Gerrit Benner Prijs. Her work is included in the collections of the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, Centraal Museum in Utrecht, Fries Museum in Leeuwarden, Museum Belvédère in Heerenveen, and in various private collections. She lives and works in Marrum (Friesland, the Netherlands). 

about the works:

The static and centralized image has lost its dominant position in our contemporary consciousness. The accelerating economy now determines the pace of our lives, but also the speed at which images on TV and computer appear to us. We see and think mainly in cinematic, shifting images.
Strangely enough, the art of drawing and painting is not in line with this. The static, centralized image is still dominant and is completely within the four boundaries of the artwork.
Machteld van Buren wants to break with this way of representation. In our contemporary experience of reality, the overall picture has become obsolete because our viewing has now been structured differently. We have become much more accustomed to moving and shifting images and much of what we see and experience takes place just outside the image or appears to us incompletely. As an extension of this, drawing and painting are for Van Buren a constant searching for the correct representation of perception and experience in our time.
In Parade, individual elements clump together in a procession of forms that seem to continue outside the image. Also in Scriptures visual elements join together to develop into a language that playfully and lightly evades from Mondrian's essentialist visual language. (Text: Peter van Lier)

www.machteldvanburen.nl

 

John Hodany, born 1974 in NYC (USA), Lives and works in Berlin and NYC, received his BFA from The Cooper Union (NYC) and his MFA from de Ateliers 63 (Amsterdam, NL). The depiction of places in a state of transition plays an important role in Hodany’s work. These transitory states usually stem from the encounter of the natural world with the manmade. Through invented techniques, using a development of patterns, sequences or cut apart and rearranged sections within the paintings, Hodany’s work creates the effect of a continuum and suggests animation within a still image. Ghostlike afterimages and repetitions appear on the surface of the paintings as if they were memories or anticipations of past or future. In this spirit, the notion of movement, the underlying patterns and the marriage of materials are always in service of the idea that things are ever-changing, that beings, objects, environments, micro-environments are in constant play.

Hodany’s work has been exhibited at Zurcher Gallery, Eleven Rivington, Greenberg Van Doren and Rare Gallery in New York, in Germany at Lena Bruening, Sabine Knust and Conradi Gallery, in Sweden at Loyal Gallery, in The Netherlands at Fons Welters and in France at Zurcher Gallery Paris. Recently, Hodany has shown his work at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and GAR Gallery in Galveston, Texas, as well as, Nationalmuseum, Rosalux Gallery and Hilbert Raum Gallery in Berlin and the Teckningmuseet (The Museum of Drawings) in Sweden.  His work has also been featured in many international art fairs including FIAC, The Armory Show, Volta, and Miami Basel. His work has been reviewed in Art in America, The New York Times, Time Out NY, Le Figaro (F) and de Volkskrant (NL) among others. His work is in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art, NYC, the Artotheque du Limousin (F), as well as private collections.

 

www.johnhodany.com

 

Zuletzt geändert am: 12/08/2021 um 17:26

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