| Rain pounds the tin roof. A steady splash begins to
puddle, and curls over the edge of four old, brown suitcases
stacked in a corner of my office. An accumulation of baggage,
both material and emotional: is this a cue for starting
this chapter? I spot another. A postcard reproduction
of Jan Vermeer's Woman in Blue Reading a Letter, 1662,
taped to the wall. The woman, apparently pregnant, clasps
the precious letter to her belly. A large wall map frames
her thoughts and possibly the distant location of the
child’s father. And there, under my keyboard and
mouse, as a final nudge of conviction, is a Van der Grinten
map projection of the world.
I wonder whether 1950s suitcases, 17th century Dutch
art, and the tradition of extending cultural links by
post between The Netherlands and Australia have nostalgic
significance for other Dutch migrant artists? Dutch
heritage in Australia is defined and discussed in previous
chapters, but the focus here is on how this heritage
manifests in cultural outcomes, specifically in the
visual arts. Through generous first-hand accounts and
visual contributions from fifteen Dutch-Australian artists
from across Australia, who discuss some of their works,
ideas, and inspiration, I have had the honour to weave
the warps of place with the wefts of time and present
a sample of contemporary art by Dutch-Australians.
These artists are professionally active, most of them
internationally renowned, and as a group their artworks
reflect a range of media, techniques, and styles. I
include reference to my own arts practice as a means
of positioning my research interests in war-induced
visual narratives, and of locating my conversations
with the artists.
Some of these artists came to Australia with the big
waves of post-WWll migration, others later, and one
was born here. Many speak with heavy northern or southern
Dutch accents, while others sound quintessentially Australian.
Many of the older generation experienced severe hardships
during the war, whereas those of the younger generation
contend with the (often unspoken) aftermath. Several
have very Dutch names, which I can never decide whether
to pronounce in English or Dutch. I'm quite certain
that every one of these artists, regardless of age,
birthplace, or creative inclination, enjoys speculaas
(a popular spicy Dutch cookie), understands the tradition
of large chocolate letters on December 5th, has stood
in awe in front of Rembrandt van Rijn's "Nachtwacht",
and knows several choice Dutch swear words. Although
their personal connections to Holland are not overtly
acknowledged on a daily basis, nor particularly evident
in their diverse and long-standing arts practices, these
artists were pleased to participate in this opportunity
to reflect on their Dutch heritage.
The idea of bringing together cultural links between
The Netherlands and Australia is not new. Numerous Dutch
cultural groups, institutions, and individuals across
Australia have initiated and supported exhibitions.
In 1994, to coincide with the blockbuster Van Gogh exhibition
at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne’s
Erasmus Foundation organised The Second Landing –
Dutch migrant artists in Australia, in which 50 artists
from around Australia were invited to participate. The
exhibition received financial support from the Dutch
Government and the accompanying catalogue included insightful
essays by Dr Edward Duyker, author, and Mr Hendrik Kolenberg,
Curator of Australian Prints, Drawings and Watercolours
at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In 1997, at the
Malthouse, also in Melbourne, The Rembrandt Connection
included Dutch-Australian artists. In 1998, Dr Kevin
Murray posed the question in his national project Turn
the Soil, “What if someone else had colonised
Australia?” Many cultural groups were considered,
including the Dutch. Kees Hos, who established and modelled
the renowned Gippsland Art School on the Bauhaus, was
invited by Murray to officially open the Turn the Soil
exhibition in 1999. Hos read a speech composed by Jan
Van Galen Last, the Dutch Consul General, who considered
"what if" Australia had been colonised by
the Dutch. Murray also facilitated a series of related
workshops, entitled Off the Beaten Track, in which participants
at Morwell, Victoria, took the opportunity to imagine
such an alternative history and developed a speculative
story of what Nieuw Holland might have been like .
ln 2000, the inaugural Abel Tasman Art Prize and associated
exchange program for emerging artists was established
to celebrate the bond between Tasmania and Holland.
This annual event, hosted alternately between The Netherlands
and Tasmania, thematically commemorates the Dutch explorer's
17th century reconnaissance of Tasmania and the subsequent
"physical and metaphorical journeys of Tasmania's
immigrants". In 2002, Rinske Car curated Transpositions,
an exhibition and catalogue of fourteen artists of Dutch
descent living in Western Australia, which opened at
the Western Australia Museum in parallel with Dr Nonja
Peters' cultural exhibition Aanpassen and Invisibility:
being Dutch in Australia. These two exhibitions were
sponsored by the Australian Netherlands Society of Western
Australia (ANSWA) and, funded by an Art on the Move
travel grant, toured together to ten regional centres
across Western Australia.
Dutch cultural groups and related exhibitions, awards,
and cultural projects continue to foster cross-institutional
connections and personal friendships. Dutch-Australian
events function as catalysts for exchanging stories,
many based on wartime experiences, emigration from Holland
and/or Indonesia, assimilation into Australian–British
culture, a collective interest in nature, a concern
for promoting humanitarian principles and sound ecology,
and personal reflection of the space between north and
south, and overlapping histories and cultures. Over
the years I have listened to many individuals share
their stories and I often wonder how many of our relatives
were held captive together in the same Japanese internment
camps on Java and Sumatra, or travelled side-by-side
on the same boats between Indonesia, Holland, and Australia?
A closer look at individual artists
Hans Arkeveld, a leading sculptor in Western Australia,
holds a life-long interest in the human body and is
renowned for his anatomically meticulous sculptures
and drawings. His works frequently express spiritual,
humorous, and heartfelt emotional dimensions that function
as poetic metaphors for the human condition and promoting
humanitarian principles. And many of his works concern
flight, either through wings or vessels.
Arkeveld's immigration by ship to Australia in September
1952 on the Johan van Oldenbarneveld inspired him to
explore migration in a contemporary context. Transmigration
90, 1990, is faithfully modelled on a cargo ship and
measures just over 100 cm long. The decks and the hatches
are crowded with carved wooden, naked figures. Largely
devoid of distinguishing details, these people have
been stripped of personal identities and pride. Seeking
refuge from politically and religiously oppressive regimes,
they risk their lives to locate a more promising future
for their children. The kinetic quality of waves that
Arkeveld adds to some of his vessels makes clear in
no uncertain terms that it is more than nature's stormy
seas that threaten to upset these cradles of humanity.
Arkeveld's boats "express the precarious and desperate
journey taken by persecuted, displaced and stateless
people" and remind us poignantly of the politics
of place and race.
The palpable tension of Arkeveld's overcrowded boats
is echoed in Aadje Bruce's sculpture Preserves, 1997,
in which dismembered dolls (legs and arms only) are
packed into sardine tins. Little toes and fingers tentatively
reach out, perhaps testing the water. Is it safe? Where
am I? Who am I? In Bruce’s studio, you can hear
the Indian Ocean and almost feel the engines of heavily
laden cattle and sheep ships travelling to the Middle
East. And from numerous war-torn countries in between
Australian and Middle Eastern shores, refugees and asylum
seekers attempt to flee to Australia via Indonesia on
small, overcrowded boats.
In the outdoor exhibition Sculpture by the Sea, held
in 2005 at Cottesloe Beach, Western Australia, Arkeveld
sculpted a child in the act of being flung over the
side of a small boat. It was a stark reminder of the
August, 2001, 'Children Overboard Incident' in which
Australia's Federal Government falsely accused asylum
seekers of throwing their children into the sea in a
desperate bid to be 'rescued' by Australian agents.
There were other incidents in which the same government
was less vigilant. In October 2001, an Indonesian vessel
was spotted in International waters heading for nearby
Australian territory. Of the 397 asylum seekers who
embarked for Australia on this grossly over-crowded
vessel, only 44 survived. Transpose, 2003, my installation
of 353 discarded suitcases temporarily installed outside
Perth's main post office and bus and train terminals
attested to the scale of the tragedy. In 2002, when
Arkeveld's Transmigration 90 was exhibited at the new
Maritime Museum in Fremantle, he commented: "The
way these people are treated like export sheep and cattle,
and the attitude of the Australian Government towards
them are still issues with us today; in fact, they have
become worse since the sculpture was created in 1990."
Aadje Bruce's quirky and colourful assemblages of domestic
objects and toys seem, at first, disarmingly humorous.
The delight, however, is replaced by the realisation
that things are not as rosy as they might first appear.
A convoy composed of more than 16 wooden toy wagons
is arranged in formation. The wagons are piled high
with dolls limbs, towering long-handled meat forks,
hundreds of toothbrushes, yellow rubber duckies, human
hair, lighters, soothers, and more. A large wooden meat-tenderizing
mallet pursues a wagon piled with babies and children's
shoes. Travelling in the opposite direction is a toy
soldier on a horse, perhaps suggesting all-too-often
tragic outcomes for children caught in cross-fire and
how the innocence of childhood is transformed. Her collection
of knitted breasts, and mounds of baby rattles, eggshells,
milk bottle tops, and fruit seeds are poignant reminders
of the fragility of life and the time and place required
to nurture future generations and sustain life. Bruce's
work reminds me that three quarters of the Dutch women
and children in the internment camp my father was in
died from malnutrition, disease, and unsanitary conditions.
In the midst of our second interview we realise that
Bruce's cousins had occupied the same camp.
I discuss with Bruce the ramifications of war: how
deprivation sharpens the ability to think and act resourcefully
and conditions one to appreciate found objects (junk,
detritus), and how they can be recycled and transformed
into powerful new objects and stories. It is then no
surprise that many Dutch migrant artists who were affected
directly by war-induced deprivation, or indirectly through
their parents' experiences, sense a sacred element in
small ordinary things; hence they often actively conserve
resources through recycling, and have the ability to
entertain themselves and others through the playful
transformation of junk into poignant and often provocative
visual experiences.
Theo Koning trained under Hans Arkeveld and shares
his mentor's marvellous capacity to tell stories. Through
his sculptures, and especially his humorous, semi-surreal
and vividly detailed and colourful small paintings,
Koning recounts his family’s exotic adventures
of travelling by ship in 1956 from Holland to Australia
via the Suez canal. Koning, like Bruce, is an avid collector
of discarded objects. The family home, his studio, and
the spaces in between teem with his passion for immaculately
arranging collections of found objects and creating
striking still-life arrangements. There is a tremendous
joie de vivre expressed through his arts practice.
Koning's work is flexible and playful, yet simultaneously
formal and considered. In juxtaposing and assembling
objects, Koning's discarded objects may become a narrative,
while at other times remain a strictly formal investigation
of form, space, line, and colour. In 2003, Koning created
Gatherings; a work that reflected abundant scavenging
trips, chance discoveries and the 'tensions of the "man-made"
and "the found"'. In many instances, the patina
and traces of wear and tear are left to reflect the
journey of the object's original life. Recently, however,
Koning has started to strip off the accumulated surface
histories. These pared-down works remind me of aged
bodies, in which the colour of youth has faded, but
which are nonetheless meticulously and proudly presented.
Whatever objects Koning collects, there is always the
potential of them becoming something else "like
Rumpelstilskin weaving straw into gold" or "one
person's junk becomes another person's treasure."
A favourite of many in the Fremantle port community,
where Koning lives, are his Boats, 1990-94; a collection
of variously shaped boats and ships assembled from small
pieces of driftwood and other flotsam and jetsam. Mounted
on a wall at the Fremantle Arts Centre, the space between
the vessels is as important as the vessels themselves.
Koning tells me he came to Australia on a boat and in
the context of this book has chosen to send a boat back.
Another Fremantle-based artist is Andrew Hayim de Vries.
His former residence for more than eighteen years at
100 Hubble Street was part of his Homeware Project and
provided a means for “exploring his cultural roots”.
For years the local community donated unwanted objects,
such as building materials, interior decorations, and
toys, and “helped Andrew to create his vision
of an eclectic, environmentally friendly house made
from ‘urban rubble’”. A profusion
of colourful trinkets, objects, and toys decorate the
property extensively and easily trigger nostalgic and
childhood memories. There is also a 1950's timber railway
baggage coach converted into a large bedroom and an
old timber ship’s wheelhouse that has become a
kitchen. And what are we to make of this particular
image of Hayim de Vries' entire head plastered in Dutch
postage stamps? Is this a form of identification with
his Dutch heritage, or is it a mask? The stamps belonged
to Hayim de Vries' father and his grandfather and are
"a direct connection with his family which is both
the source of his identity and the cause for self-reflection".
His mother endured the senselessness of a German concentration
camp and his father suffered a similar ordeal in a Japanese
POW camp. While Andrew's work is intensely personal,
he "speaks for each and everybody's desire to understand
their being in the context of a world dominated by global
insignificance."
Like Arkeveld, Bruce, Koning and Hayim de Vries, I
also live in Western Australia and work with found objects,
including discarded maps, measuring cups and suitcases.
My exhibition Promised Land included 800 topographic
maps of Australia individually folded into paper shopping
bags. These maps, printed in 1942 for wartime distribution,
were chosen specifically as an acute reminder of our
collective reliance on the fruits of the Earth and the
links between us all. My father, a child in a Japanese
internment camp, taught his family to live as resourcefully
as possible and to revere the Earth. This kind of home
schooling is common to many children of wartime survivors.
My installation Transpose, 2005, created as part of
the exhibition Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe, reflects
the stories of many migrants in the form four cubic
metres of suitcases washed up from the Indian Ocean.
In the background sails the locally made replica of
Captain Willem Janszoon’s ship the Duyfken, the
first recorded European ship to land on Australia, in
1606. Robert Knottenbelt remarks of this work "…
it's metaphorical cultural baggage in those stacks [of
suitcases]: biscuits, chocolate, gin, coffee, tulips,
clogs, smugness, and neat square Delft birth tiles in
blue and white, the weighted wall clock above the cradle.
The cultural and language baths of a mother tongue,
its indelible watermarks imprinting you a stranger in
a strange land".
The fragile bonds between people and place, as exemplified
in the aforementioned postcard reproduction of Vermeer’s
Woman in Blue Reading a Letter lead me to Robert Knottenbelt’s
postcards. Yesterday, upon opening a package sent by
Knottenbelt, I was confronted with the image of a glass
postcard depicting an exploding mushroom cloud. Coincidentally,
this week marks the 60th anniversary of the end of WWll
and the devastating nuclear bombs dropped on Japan in
1945. Created from fusing glass over wire mesh, enamels,
and gold leaf in a kiln, the imagery in Knottenbelt's
twenty-four Trivial Postcards from a Country Madhouse,
1984, vividly expresses his concern for humanity and,
as the creator and sender of these postcards, suggests
that he has survived a particular journey of "universal
terror".
According to Jenny Zimmer, the Trivial postcards…
"can be read progressively as an event" starting
with a nuclear explosion and leading to "fallout,
fire, irradiation, and the dehydration and dissipation
of organic matter. The next six seem to suggest a process
of reconstruction, or at least the promise of it,"
whereas the remainder increasingly build up in composition.
Knottenbelt was born in Amsterdam in 1947; therefore,
his upbringing was shaped by post-war reconstruction.
He describes European landscapes as "soaked in
pain". His world view has also been shaped by his
father's Burma Railroad experience and his mother's
internment in a women's and children's camp in Sumatra.
Knottenbelt's fallout of war on humanity, combined with
a dislocated migrant's experience of moving between
Holland, New Zealand, and Australia, brings to mind
Arkeveld's boats and Bruce's convoy and "cannot
be described so much as intensely felt."
Knottenbelt describes himself as a nuclear baby. I
understand what he means and struggle with the same
irony. How is it possible to come to terms with the
tortuous deaths of thousands of Japanese families and
the resulting freedom of Western POWs to create their
own families? I imagine Knottenbelt holding this iconic
image of the mushroom cloud in his hands, the weight
of the still-warm glass distorting his fingerprints.
He doesn't tell us for whom the glass postcard is intended.
This week I learned a new word from a Japanese student:
“evaporated”. I am reminded of images of
melted watch faces. What kind of time bombs shape our
future landscapes?
Norris Ioannou writes "Knottenbelt's work has
dealt with loss in both a biological and environmental
sense, and more specifically, with notions of complexity,
species demise and eco fragility." Knottenbelt's
Salt from the Bonerock canticles series is part of a
larger series of works titled A Vanishing in the Peripheral
Eye. The Canticles, a series of cast glass table-shaped
sculptures, reference underground aquifers. For Kottenbelt,
aquifers are like the 'marrow' of the land; although
not immediately visible to the eye, they are a primary
source of life. Sadly, these ancient resources that
take thousands of years to replenish have been senselessly
squandered. One result is catastrophically rising salinity
levels in soil and water that cannot support life. Knottenbelt's
passion is to express global loss of species habitat
and environmental change through innovative cast glass
sculptures "where internal intricacy, light, and
colour express facets of change, time, and things lost'.
Petrus Spronk's striking work Architectural Fragment,
1992, is located in busy Swanston Street, Melbourne.
Dually inspired by architectural fragments of sculpture,
some of them 6000 years old collected on the island
of Samos, and Victoria's State Library's classical facade,
the resulting Pythagorean triangle or pyramid, with
a ratio of 3:4:5, is a cleverly conceived and dynamically
positioned artwork. Its placement in the ground leaves
the work open to interpretation as to whether the classical
ideals, associated with learning and cultivating wisdom,
are sinking or rising. Equally renowned as a talented
ceramicist, Spronk's wood-fired, earthernware bowls,
which he often breaks and then reassembles "to
create a compositional effect" are conceptually
and spatially complex. In 1999, upon his return from
an Asialink residency in Korea, Spronk wrote "I
am finding myself, all of a sudden, in a world without
ordinariness… This is the prize we receive for
the act of leaving home. … for the act of leaving
the familiar for the unfamiliar. …the prize is
that we get to perceive the world as new… "
Judith van Heeren's family learned to appreciate the
world as new within the context of exploring unfamiliar
Australian landscape, flora, and fauna. She particularly
enjoyed sharing walks with her father, also a painter.
Like many migrant families escaping postwar Europe,
the Van Heerens bonded with nature as an antidote to
war-torn Europe and its overcrowded living conditions.
Another contributing factor for bonding with nature
was that many of the urban centres to which the Dutch
migrated were regarded in the 1960s as cultural wastelands.
Perhaps the loss of familiar cultural markers encouraged
many Dutch migrants to explore beyond their own backyards.
It is not surprising, then, that numerous artists in
this study have developed particularly strong connections
to nature and have chosen to live, as Petrus Spronk
puts it, "a simple lifestyle", and have predispositions
to seeking solitude and inner peace through nature.
As another antidote to the perceived cultural wastelands,
many Dutch families, such as the Van Heerens, filled
their homes with European art, music, and festive traditions.
Also, many families received care packages of food,
books, toys, and clothing from The Netherlands. Growing
up in New Zealand after the war, Knottenbelt recalls
receiving care packages from the Dutch Government which
included yearly calendars of Dutch artworks held in
the Rijks Museum. The influence of 17th century Dutch
Masters as a form of cultural pride and inspiration
is frequently remarked upon during the course of my
conversations with the artists.
It was during Van Heeren's second visit to Holland,
at the age of 23, that she discovered her interest in
17th-century Dutch art. "Most of the paintings
of nature (still lifes) that I admired were done by
women – mainly the daughters of male painters".
Van Heeren was "drawn to the exquisite attention
to detail in the work of this period, and the amalgamation
of science and art." This started Van Heeren on
"a journey to explore this traditional style of
painting… and to apply it in a contemporary context."
Judith Van Heeren's most recent solo exhibition of
oil paintings was of birds, many of which she painted
from the scientific collections held by the Melbourne
Museum. Such colonially inspired collections remind
us of the nautically driven expansion for new trade
links, luxury goods, and the collection of exotic life
forms. But in a contemporary context, what does it mean
to take old scientific records and paint them with a
near reverential quality so that the birds almost look
alive? Peter Stafford's surmises "In a time of
great ecological and hence ornithological catastrophe
we might even find that such careful and imaginative
listening could be of assistance to our feathered friends."
And yet, when they were alive, the species Van Heeren
juxtaposes in her ethereal landscapes did not naturally
share the same geographical habitat. What then is the
horizon and body of water shared by the Glossy Ibis,
collected in Australia, and the Bronze-winged Jacana,
collected in India? Perhaps her compositions of birds
metaphorically allude to Peters' notion of how many
Dutch in Australia adapted to this unfamiliar landscape
by creatively locating a personal position and sense
of place that combines the best of the past, a sensitivity
for the present, and a responsibility to care for the
future.
Terra Incognita, 2004, by Perth-based Rick Vermey,
was inspired by exploring a particular moment in Australia's
cultural history, when, according to legend, a ship
of "hopeful Dutch pioneers" was wrecked on
the rocky coast of present day Western Australia in
1629. Vermey questions whether these "lost souls"
were "the first of Australia's asylum seekers?"
Australian-born Vermey recounts his first "European
Tour" during which he discovered a "curious
affinity with the previously 'unspoken' Dutch side of
his cultural heritage." This connection inspired
Vermey to speculate on themes of colonial history, national
identity, individuality, social dislocation, and political
ambiguity. Terra Incognita is overprinted with a fingerprint
that personally references Vermey's Dutch ancestry,
whereas the pixelated black and white image printed
on synthetic fabric alludes to "our contemporary
context of rapid, digitally downloaded, vicarious experiences."
Vermey's work, in various media and formats, provokes
viewers to reflect on the passing of time and the tenuous
bonds between people and place. His is a shifting ground
that makes it almost impossible to feel like one has
ever arrived.
Richard Woldendorp is celebrated as an Honorary Life
Member of the Australian Institute of Professional Photography
and is internationally renowned for his landscape images.
Like Vermey, Woldendorp makes reference to a 17th century
nautical encounter with the unfamiliar Australian coastline.
For this publication, Woldendorp has chosen a photographic
image "taken over the mouth of the Jardine River,
Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, where the Duyfken would
have encountered the Australian continent". In
collaboration with novelist and eco-activist Tim Winton,
Woldendorp published his thirteenth book of awe-inspiring
photographic images in Down to Earth: Australian Landscapes
(1999), which is now in its third printing.
Arriving in Fremantle in 1951, after serving with the
Dutch army in Indonesia, Woldendorp was drawn to Western
Australia's landscapes, and to its unusual flora and
fauna. Woldendorp finds photography to be "a rewarding
medium to develop a relationship with one's natural
environment." Through his passionate direction
of the camera lens, and his resultant iconic images
of water, earth, and all aspects of nature in between,
Woldendorp captures the essence of Australia, which
for him is a "sheer contrast" to The Netherlands.
He states: 'The Australian landscape has always appealed
to me. There's something about it – it's spaciousness,
its character, its uniqueness and the light. …
It is the flattest and driest continent, which compared
to other countries, does not manifest itself in grandeur,
as we know it… Australia also has large areas
of landscape virtually unaffected by man, so it is possible
to record millions of years of evolution."
Woldendorp's recent "epic" large-format
aerial images, some almost 2 metres long, command the
space and immerse the viewer in another time and place.
Monique van Nieuwland, who migrated to Australia in
1982, declares "I wear my Dutch roots on my skin".
A longstanding contributor to the Textiles Studio at
the Australian National University, Van Nieuwland's
repertoire of textile-based works includes techniques,
traditional motifs, and cultural emblems closely associated
with traditional Dutch domestic interiors. Her work
Tree of Life – Four Elements was created using
the particular beiderwand weave technique once commonly
used to weave curtains for enclosing bedstees (alcove
beds) in old Dutch homes. These curtains often depicted
biblical themes, such as the Tree of Life. In Dutch
cross-stitch samplers, this tree "symbolises the
struggle between good and evil, and is a metaphor for
fertility, prosperity, love, long life, wisdom, and
strength." This motif is also incorporated in Skin
Cloth – Tree of Life, 2003, an autobiographical
work in which van Nieuwland has combined the traditional
sampler image of the tree with an image of her body
into a striking jacquard weave. For van Nieuwland, the
Tree of Life in a contemporary environmental context
is "a reminder that if our trees suffer, life on
Earth is under threat."
The sculptures of Melbourne's Adrian Mauriks are featured
in major Australian buildings and parks and he is represented
in private and public collections in Australia and overseas.
Compilation, 2003, at Deakin University, Melbourne,
is sensuously smooth, cool, and white. Elegant in form
and composition, the epoxy resin construct beckons from
a distance and seduces viewers to come closer and explore
from all angles.
Born in 1942 near 'sHertogenbosch, Mauriks was left
with an imprint of the war not easily discussed. The
journey to Australia on the ship Johan Van Oldenbarenveld
in 1957 remains a pivotal event for him, and many of
his earlier works "refer to journeys, going from
one mind-space to another". For Mauriks, making
sculpture is a means "of objectifying personal
experience". He explains that the migrant experience
of having to deal with a new language under difficult
circumstances shapes one's world view. For Mauriks,
existentialism, Camus and Satre are continuing influences.
He states, "Art evaluates being there, linking
events at the edge to living the silence of our personal
space." In 1988, Susanna Short observed that "implicit
in all his work is the message that Western civilization
is teetering on the verge of ruin." But Mauriks
makes it clear that whatever the case, there is always
hope in his work. Like many other artists discussed
in this chapter, he is actively involved in issues surrounding
the environment and social justice. He says "I
am optimistic enough to feel that the arts flurry of
today to some degree at least, balances out the fear
factor and aggression of recent times."
Jan Riske describes Holland in 1952 as a “really
was a tough place”. It compelled him to “jump
like a cat out of a box” and like thousands before
him hoping he’d land in a place in which to broaden
his educational opportunities and understanding of the
world. Riske describes leaving Dutch shores as a Dutch
thing. National cultural institutions in Australia are
increasingly acknowledging Riske’s significant
contribution to art in Australia. Riske's oil paintings,
such as Yellow Command, 1989, in the National gallery
of Australia in Canberra, and Perceptual Field, exert
a powerful presence through an obsessive interplay of
line, texture, colour, repetition and light that is
humbly breathtaking, even when viewed from a small transparency.
His paintings are highly tactile, richly-coloured, patterned
surfaces that pulsate with energy and a tension of controlled
yet expressive flourish of minute detail. The series
Expressions in Time, comprises intricately woven juxtapositions
of colour and directions of application. In many instances
the thickly applied and manipulated paint could almost
be described in sculptural terms as "low relief".
With respect to his appreciation for light and application
of paint it is not hard to understand Riske's admiration
for Vincent Van Gogh and Georges Seurat , and in terms
of line and pattern, the formal abstraction of Piet
Mondrian plays an undercurrent of geometric discipline.
Curators have commented on Riske's admiration for Jan
Vermeer and Riske's associated concern to locate a disciplined
balance between light and shadow. Hendrick Kolenberg
describes how Riske's work "eschews description
of the representation of human emotion, rather it is
suggestive of the underlying structures of all matter
or of concepts such as time and space or infinity."
Born in Dordrecht in 1932, Riske lives and exhibits
between Australia, New York, and Holland and his works
are widely exhibited and collected.
Baroque is an apt term to describe Rinske Car's early
career in designing colourful, textile wall sculptures
for Sheraton Hotels around the world. Her studies of
Renaissance castle tapestries and her training as a
textiles restorer inspired her to work on a large scale.
Car subsequently established a career in designing luxurious
woollen carpets and currently coordinates the Textiles
Studio at Edith Cowan University in Western Australia.
Her recent necklaces, each creation made of thousands
of ordinary buttons crocheted side by side, are intimate
in scale, but also baroque in character. The strands
have a mother of pearl lustre and are plaited into thick,
chunky, coils that sit heavily across the collarbone.
Many Dutch women traditionally wore large coral necklaces
with centred medallions as social markers of wealth
and status. The sheer mass of Car’s button necklaces
reminds me of the clothes we shed over the course of
a lifetime and in turn the weight of accumulated memories
of the clothes of others who have touched our lives
and the fastening and unfastening and revealing and
concealing of these various relationships. The pearly
lustre and size of the necklace reminds me of Jan Vermeer's
painting Girl with a Pearl Earring, 1665-6, from whose
pierced ear hangs a massive grey pearl. The soft colours
and lustre of the buttons also remind me of subtle nail
polish colours. Car’s photographic image, Still
Life, 2002, is a reflection of Dutch domesticity and
the cultural emphasis on order, cleanliness and pride.
The image reflects a personal daily ritual and a quiet
reflection of self relative to time and place. Rinske's
toenails are neatly painted in coral. A traditional
hand painted blue porcelain bowl from Indonesia is displayed
with pride. An indigo dyed towel lies in wait. The subtly
applied coral colour will join the pearly lustre of
the button necklaces that materialise years later. The
emphasis on blue echoes back across the depths of time
to sea-faring trade networks, blue on white porcelain
traditions, the corresponding interest in the East,
and the resulting lure of new textiles, colours, plants,
animals, and spices.
Water and wind
On the fireplace mantle behind me are three blue on
white Delft ceramic tiles removed from an old house
in Holland. The traditional association of this blue
in relation to the Netherlands originated in the 17th
century when the Dutch East India Company (VOC) introduced
blue painted porcelain from China. The painted scenes
are idyllic landscapes with boats, trees, windmills,
villages, and farms with smoking chimneys. The implied
comfort and pride of place reminds me of our collective
desire for living without violence and also the necessity
of locating a balance with respect to what we increasingly
remove from nature to sustain us. The old tiles lead
me of Robert van Koesveld's Dutch Tiles, 2002. Of the
sixteen square images tinted blue and arranged in a
tile format, 14 are portraits of artists of Dutch descent
living in Western Australia. The 2 remaining tiles are
a juxtaposition of the iconic image of an Australian
Southern Cross windmill and a classic Dutch windmill.
Water and wind. On my way home tonight I passed by the
moored replica of the 17th century ship Duyfken, which
translated into English means "the little dove".
In 2006, to coincide with the 400 year anniversary
of nautically-oriented connections between The Netherlands
and Australia, postcard reproductions of several artworks
by artists in this chapter will seek numerous Dutch
destinations.
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