José Heerkens Luminous Square XII, 2009 70x70 cm, oil on linen
José Heerkens lives and works in Zeeland, NB, a village in the southeast of The Netherlands. She is fascinated by space, by light, by rhythym and color. Her non-objective paintings and drawings are elegant explorations and discoveries, reflective of the environment.
José Heerkens April Studio 2010
"Today is a beautiful Sunday, silent and sunny. Spring has started very slowly this year. The photo shows the east side, the windows are on the northside. The total space is about 110 square meters."
José Heerkens Color Study, 2009 30x20 cm, colored pencil on paper
In her own words:
"I have a fascination for the endlessness of the space of the landscape (which) forms the basis of my work. As a child, I looked at the rhythym of the trees, the colors and forms of the ploughed fields, the water in the ditches and listened to how the people talked and saw how they built and worked. I think the need to understand life is the first step on the way to art.
José Heerkens Written Colours, II, 2010 150x200cm, oil on linen
"In my work line is always an important means to visualize space. Lines form and lead space toward rhythmic constructions. I search for the life and human on one side, and the geometry, the universal standard, on the other side; space as silence and emptiness on one side, and completeness and perfection on the other side. There is a constant dialogue between construction and intuition. I need them both in my effort to understand.
José Heerkens Passing Colours IV, 2009 30x30cm, oil on linen
"Colour is a whole world. Colour is light, space, energy, movement, and I strive towards a space where these qualities, in all clarity, meet.
José Heerkens Reality of Light, IV, 2010 120x120cm, oil on linen
"The painting becomes a place where light and space seek and form each other. In several series I leave the linen unpainted so the colour and the material of the pure linen is part of the painting.
José Heerkens Written Colours, I 2010 150x200cm, oil on linen
"I work on series at the same time so that they develop side by side, simultaneously. Sometimes a series goes on for years. Some of my newest work is titled, 'Written Colours'. These paintings show a new step in my work".
José Heerkens studied at Koninklijke Academie voor Kunst en Vormgeving, s-Hertogenbosch (Noord Brabant). She has also had educational travels in Iceland and the Westman Islands, Singapore, Norway, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Greece, Malaysia and the United States.
José Heerkens Reality of Light III, 2009 120x120cm oil on linen
Formeel 2010, an exhibitoion with Cecilia Vissers, opens on May 21 in Museum Waterland in Pumerend (NH).
Helmut Federle posits that there has never been a significant period in world history where art and society exist on the same level, that the solitary alienation of the artist within society is unavoidable. Federle suggests contemporary American art embodies a prescience of striving for base values; reasons to exist, and that the the toxic pall cast by our current financial debacle weighs in heavily as far as American art being produced today. By comparison, the European arena embraces the existence of art asart itself, without questioning the being or lack thereof of underlying creative desires and energies.
From this rather isolated pile of rocks in the Atlantic, I admit it is difficult to weigh in with much substance. One thing is for certain: as a contemporary artist working within a global field, it is extraordinary to be able to share and connect ideas and language with one another. I may lead a hermetic life, but my society, as I choose to define it, is vital.
Recently I've been introduced to two artists working within the same reductive aesthetic as myself, Connie Goldman from California, in the United States, and Cecilia Vissers from
Sint-Oedenrode, The Netherlands. We each embrace the importance of space, rhythm and structure within our work. As Cecilia has said to me,
"...It is very important to find interesting spaces for reductive art, all over the world, as it is a very specific form of art. We go back to basics, sometimes it feels like living on a very small island. We need to cross borders and swim oceans, be strong and not get lost in 'artland'....".
Cecilia Vissers
Cecilia Vissers makes wall and floor sculptures in steel. She is interested in concepts of strength and power, minimal intervention, and isolation. For her, this uncompromising material is an essential and consistent factor. Vissers strives to create simple compositions of restricted color and primary shapes, responding deeply to the character of thick plates of warm-rolled steel, the specific surface texture and weight. The wall sculptures are pure, minimal in nature. The adage of modernist architects from the early 20th century, ‘less is more’, would be an excellent characterization.
Cecilia Vissers Needles and Pins
The work is driven by power, rhythm, repetition and pattern. Logic is regularly challenged in apparently inflexible materials and irrefutable forms. Her plate steel sculptures are executed in 8/15 mm steel, and weigh up to 200 kg, with one or perhaps several minimal saw cuts, only enough to produce a clear and concentrated form.
Cecilia Vissers
" I strive to find a clarity and concentration of form, line and color through minimal intervention enacted in a plate of steel."
The steel plates are immersed in four separate baths, a process of electrolysis referred to as anodization. The resulting patinas are bonded permanently to the surfaces, eliciting rich
Cecilia VissersStudio, 2009
tones of hue to the steel plates. For Vissers, the steel plates, which are made in Germany, function as large sponges saturated with strength, power, life, death and history.
Cecila Vissers, Wald, Anodized Aluminum, 30 x 24.5 x 1.5 cm each, 2009 Elements Gallery, Waalre, The Netherlands
"... I am looking for simplicity in a raging world, a world that I am very happy to discover but also need to avoid every now and then."
Cecilia Vissers work can be seen at Elements Gallery in Waarle, The Netherlands. Her upcoming Paris exhibition, En Forme, with the artist Eric Cruikshank opens in 2010 at ParisCONCRET .
Connie Goldman
Connie Goldman creates wall sculptures of layered, shaped and painted wood. Her reductive constructions focus on the spaces created between layers of flat, modular planes. Her work begins as very loose sketches which are eventually translated into shaped wooden panels. The panels are meticulously painted and put together in layers. There is a harmony; balance within this meditative, beautiful work.
Connie Goldman Captive I Oil on Wood Panel, 53x43 inches2006
In her own words:
"Using a minimalist vocabulary and a reductive aesthetic that emphasizes the importance of space, rhythm, structure, and relations, I make works of art that are concrete and essential approximations of my own emotional and intellectual experiences. The work reflects my interests in architecture, music, science, sculpture, and painting as well as the threads of commonality that run between them.
Connie GoldmanEddy
"The tendency or desire to gravitate toward unity and stability is in opposition to the urge toward independence, transition, and growth.My work evokes this same tension, the dynamic that underlies my own existence.I see each piece as being analogous to the rhythmic and contradictory forces of stasis and flux that propel my world toward both constancy and change". Connie Goldman Current VIII
Goldman's lyrical compositions yield a variety of quiet shadows which broaden the spaces in between the flat but open modular constructions. The various planes become an interplay of light, space and form, giving each configuration a sophisticated elegance.
Connie Goldman Arena IV 12x11x2 inches Oil on Wood Panel 2008
Connie Goldman exhibits her artwork nationally and teaches at colleges and universities throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. She is represented by Peter Blake Gallery in Laguna Beach, CA.Her work is included in many public and private collections.
