Peter Koole
The subjects of Peter Koole's paintings come from what was once a topical subject, with an aftermath that extends over a longer period of time. Then the cameras are already elsewhere. A limited number of subjects are explored, different aspects of an event are exposed.
Quite a few works raise a question of guilt. There is the question of compassion, the attempt to keep something or someone out of oblivion. The paintings are aloof, painted without handwriting. Koole does not want to stand in the way and likes to depict objectivity in the hope of convincing. The fact that the paintings are painted clinically does not mean that they create distance. On the contrary, they respond strongly to the feeling and ask for involvement.
Peter Koole has created eleven paintings that have their origins in the Balkan War, the fall of Srebrenica and its aftermath to this day. The series is called 'The Balkan Paintings'. Another series concerns five works for Anna Politkovskaya, the Russian journalist for the newspaper Novaja Gazeta, who was murdered in 2006. Overarching title is: 'Dedicated to Anna Politkovskaya'. In addition to these two series, there is also work, for example, on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, on refugees and the Rotterdam Detention Centre.
Wilma Kun
My work that I have developed in recent years is about identity. For this I use images of myself. I research different aspects of identity such as :
- sexual identity
- the personal identity and the capacity to perceive it
- the collective and personal memory through reconstruction
as well as the influence of media in contemporary culture in determining identity.
Marjan Laaper
Marjan Laaper (1971)
Marjan Laaper 1971, graduated from WDKA's Fine Arts Department in 1994. She was educated at the Maryland College of Art, Baltimore, USA and the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam, NL. She attended several residencies in the USA, Japan, China and Iceland.
She specializes in large-scale video projections, installations and Public Art Commissions. Simple everyday phenomena are being presented within a quite poetic, sometimes even philosophical framework. General human experiences, human thinking, nature, and the experience of everyday life are starting points in her work. Often there is a tension between contradictory subjects and symbols like beauty and danger, the immaterial and the transitory trust and alarm. The work does not give clear answers, but shows recognizable elements that generate questions.
Video installation: "The Gift" in Xiamen, China 2013
In 2013 she received a grant to work in Xiamen for 9 weeks. During her stay, she was fascinated by the urban surrounding in Xiamen where big LED screens where situated in the city center but also by the natural beauty of the mountains where the city was built around. Just like old poets and painters she wanted to bring an ode to nature and the mystery of life itself.
There she made the public artwork: "The Gift". The work: "The Gift" (2013) shows two hands that are filmed from above. The hands are close together as if they were asking for something. After a while a small bird lands into the hands and makes it his residence for a short while. After some time, the bird flies away, leaving the hands waiting for the next gift.
Mieke Borgdorff
The beauty of half-decayed materials, oxidation processes such as rust with beautiful colours, shapes and structures, the stubbornness of tree bark, but also flattened cans, the granular structure of sand, flaking walls, all those testimonies of history, of life that is lived, animated, enjoying, hurt and dented, sprung up again, powerful, breathing, struggling, searching, radiant.
Again and again the matter, which has been touched by the forces of nature, forms the basis from which Mieke Borgdorff departs, in which the painting 'whispers' her path in the creative process. It is a process of tuning in, coinciding with and merging into the experience. Transitoriness, wear and tear, weathering: for her signs of life that is lived.
Characteristic for her work are the earth colours: she uses earth and sand from different places and regions in the world, other materials she finds on beach, forest, street. Where it falls at her feet. It is often there for the taking!
Lyrical abstract works emerge, in which matter is decisive, cosmic landscapes also emerge, a world to lose yourself in, to make contact with what is greater than yourself, to dream, to experience the essence of existence in the deeper layers of your consciousness.
