Statement – English

ARTIST STATEMENT “Nothing is more abstract then reality” (Morandi) I am interested in deconstructing the landscape and reconstructing a new, physical, raw reality of my personal experience. This process is my contribution to the historical narrative of landscape painting. It is important to me to continue this narrative, because I believe in the potential to understand our human nature through the investigation of our relationship with our environment. I do this through painting. Painting is my vocabulary. To me the process of painting is a highly physical experience, a balancing act between sculpting and dissolving layers of paint and between constructing and destructing emerging structures and patterns. The resulting ‘landscapes’ do not refer to nature as it exists, nor to photographs or images, they themselves ARE expressive spaces that only came into being through the act of painting. Ingrid Simons 2018 Statement graphic art Although my oil paintings have priority, I make graphic art (in the techniques of silkscreen printing, lithography and toyobo prints). I paint self-designed ceramic objects and azulejos (ceramic tiles) influenced by Portuguese and Dutch tradition. In my graphic art the construction of the image is a slower process, which needs more technical preparation, for example in connection with making of the films and the building of the several layers in edition. This rendering, which significantly differs from my direct, physical way of painting, gives an enrichment and broadening in my work. This interaction strengthens both facets in my work. I am currently working the most frequently in the technique of screen printing (1999-present). As my paintings they are deconstructed, but in this technique by making several films, one per pass/color. While printing, I rebuild the image through printing several layers. My specialty is printing with silver inks, through which I can, in a different way as in painting, play with abstraction. The changing viewing point of the spectator turns the printed silver ink from a suggestive surface to an abstract shape, and back again, while passing by. This opens the interpretation of the image and can cause alienation and broaden its meaning. Like in a painting the spectator should be seduced to go into the image, into this new world, to wander around. Another specialty is lithography (stoneprint, 1999-present). I make lithographies in crayon (drawings) and tusche (paintings), and combinations of both. I experiment with new, photographic techniques, by which I edit the image on the stone itself. I work on small up to large scale (80 x 120 cm.). At the moment I work most frequently in the technique of the ‘lost stone’. With this technique I first draw or paint a full image. This pass is printed in one color, after which I remove parts of the image and/or re-paint, while the stone is fixated inside the printing press. Then the stone will be printed in a second pass, a new color, etcetera. This technique can only be printed on a very specialized press. For this technique, I work together with two masters in lithography at Nederlands Steendrukmuseum and Druckwerkstatt BBK in Berlin. The third graphic art technique in my work is the technique of photopolymer (toyobo print). Though this technique I translate my photos with strong autonomous value into these light sensitive plates, which I then print on paper, in color, as with an etching. Every photographical detail will be visible. All this affects each other and while making my graphic art at the same time I develop my paintings and artist language. Working in the above-mentioned techniques in combination with making my oil paintings most definitely offers an added value. Several separate international circuits have risen in the last few years, where I show my prints (for example the Biennial of Novosibirsk, Novosibirsk State Art Museum, the Biennial of Douro, Coa Museum (Portugal), Phoenix Arts Association, Brighton (UK), Druckwerkstatt BKK Berlin, Manhattan Graphics Center, New York). Since 2001 I have been working at Grafisch Atelier Daglicht (now Beeldenstorm/Daglicht) in Eindhoven as an artist adviser in all techniques. Ingrid Simons 2018 Statement ceramics Although my oil paintings have priority, I paint self-designed ceramic objects and azulejos (ceramic tiles) influenced by Portuguese and Dutch tradition. I create graphic art (lithographs, silkscreen printing and toyobo prints) The connection between my ceramic work and painting is the physical act with which my work arises. Working with matter, breaking down and building up, is known to me from technique in which I create my paintings. Working with ceramic shapes adds a three-dimensional segment to my work. I am curious about the influence of this relatively new segment in my work. The round shape of the “vase” affects how you perceive the painting and parts disappear from view. I am forced to use the flow of the paint, which I use a lot in my paintings, in a different way. By having to approach this material differently, it develops a broader way of painting. The pasteus use of the oil paint in my paintings, the tangible, I recently started translating in my ceramics by painting with clay and the three dimensionality of the objects themselves. The functioning of the luster of the enamel, which changes when the position of the viewer changes and where the image (sometimes partly) changes, gives the painted an interesting new given. As with the given of overexposure in my painted forest trails details disappear and abstracted forms arise. This occurs in my ceramic works too, but now I paint the entire forest trail and it disappears under the influence of the shining of the enamel. This also refers to the use of silver inks while making my silkscreen prints. Starting in 2010 with painting my first azulejos with a ceramics master, followed by flowers vases inspired by Alentejano (Portuguese) tradition, every year I worked with him and his son, my ceramic work developed more and more towards three dimensional ceramic objects. In 2018 I am researching a new three dimensional series to be presented in installation form. All this affects each other and while making my ceramic work at the same time I develop my paintings and artist language. Working in the above-mentioned techniques in combination with making my oil paintings for my work most definitely an added value. There is a visual and substantive difference between my Dutch and Portuguese ceramic work. My Dutch ceramics are poured. The vases in itself are made from self-designed molds and the paint is mixed in the factory, on the label is visual which colour it will be : everything is tighter finished and tuned. My ceramic work in Portugal is also handmade, but the azulejos are rolled from thick strips of clay, and the vases are made by hand by the master on the turning wheel, following a sketch of my hand, and by him traditional influences are added. The paint is mixed at the spot and varies by every blending. I have shown my ceramic works in several separate circuits, for example in a solo exhibition “O azul do Alentejo, sob o meu olhar” at Museu do Artesanato e do Design in Ėvora, Portugal (2015 only ceramic work), a solo exhibition in Galeria Municipal D. Dinis in Estremoz, Portugal (2017) and in a duo exhibition at Huub Hannen Galerie in Maastricht in 2018. I want to show these various disciplines more often in context with each other. The last year I started to view my ceramic work as three-dimensional objects in combination with the paintings and I would like to experiment with this further, as well in my work, as in my exhibitions. Ingrid Simons 2018 Statement short film and installation During a work period in Portugal in 2013, I intuitively started making very short, raw movies (1 minute/5 minutes), to capture and isolate moments in nature. Abstract structures, which seem to be “stills”, which, often through wind, which changes the structures and rhythms. After that they return to be abstract resonances. They tell about transience, time or timelessness, stillness, the abstraction of realistic forms in nature and recast of those ; each element in time seems like another abstract painting in nature. Its repetitions gives a feel of meditation but also obsession. They are often shown in an “infinite” loop. As the short film “Windflowers” commissioned by the Sikkens Foundation for The One Minutes Foundation (Amsterdam, 2013, series “Color”). This “One Minute” is selected for several presentations, among others : Power Station of Art-Shanghai, The One Minutes on tour, Shanghai (China), Córdoba International Film-Minute Festival (AR), Bonnefanten Museum, Maastricht (NL), deBuren, Brussels (BE), Dortmunder you (DE), Drents Museum Assen/CBK (NL), Museum de Fundatie, Zwolle (NL), Museum De Pont, Tilburg (NL), SCHUNCK *, Heerlen (NL). In 2017 I started expending my short film to a new project, a  live performance interactive installation in cooperation with a Swiss cellist player. Since this development and cooperation,

music and interacting with the short film, grew into developing (interactive) environments. In 2018 I started experimenting with the interaction of paintings within these environments.


Ingrid Simons 

2018


 “Windflowers” (please click here to view)

 

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