Botanica poetica
curator Cees de Boer
opening sunday 16 october
from 3 pm to 5.30 pm
4 pm short introduction by
curator Cees de Boer
The works in this exhibition balance on the border of language and nature, of legible and visual artwork. Sometimes the book or the book form plays a role, sometimes the shapes that plants conjure up before our eyes are decisive.
herman de vries (1931) has become the undisputed forerunner of current trends in art that focus on ecology, that work with nature in a material sense, or that create works of art parallel to nature's wealth of forms. In de vries's oeuvre, the concepts of nature and art constantly displace and change each other. de vries presents nature as art. This means that a bundle of straw may end up in his artist's book on language (1972), that a gnawed tree leaf presents the typography of chance and that a street grass (Poa annua) in his five manifestos on language - and a poem (1975) is the poem mentioned in the title of this artist's publication.
In his paintings and drawings, Warffemius creates a vegetal world that has little to do with nature as we know it. Plants, fungi, flower buds, fruits and by extension growth and metamorphosis are not depicted but become visible and evolve through the actions of painting. It is a possible nature-in-the-making, or perhaps a preliminary phase of nature as we know it. Warffemius' work is abstract and sensory at the same time, wavering between the microscope and the stargazer and creating a dialogue between these two perceptions concerning the never-ending metamorphosis of nature - and art.
Sjoerd Buisman takes the growth of plants and trees, as he observes them in nature, as the starting point for his sculpture. The growth forms provide the abstract principles of his art. This starting point leads Buisman to works of art in which manipulation and alternative connections between elements play a major role. Abstraction, even in the material and colour in which he executes his sculptures, has a much larger and more autonomous role in Buisman's work than in that of other artists. Sculptures in bronze and in wood are presented side by side to show the abstraction steps Buisman makes.
Stefan Cools has a major solo exhibition at De Domijnen in Sittard until 1 November, entitled 'From the life of a butterfly.' His work shows an equally intense love of nature as the work of herman de vries, but Cools goes a step further: he intervenes in nature, based on the idea that from the beginning, man and nature have formed an ecology together. Ecology is central to how Cools collects material, presents it and develops autonomous work based on his daily walks and actions. Over the past two years, the concrete and actual management (ecological, economic and social) of a large field in South Limburg has developed into a central project in his art under the title 'Artist becomes farmer.' In this way, Cools gives the concept of autonomy of art a totally different meaning. His work in this exhibition is called 'Reading the hay' and it includes material from the aforementioned field. It is an invitation to read some very specific moments in (food) ecology as a poem.
Lilian Cooper is an artist who constantly works and thinks in smaller and larger projects. She can go intensely into places and become absorbed in moments that nature offers her, often allowing sensory perception to win out over the time factor: the portrait of a tree, the recording of wave action on the beach, a love letter she draws/writes to a fern or the cherry tree in her garden. Nature is her permanent artist's abode. Her notes naturally become collections, books, book forms that condense her work, thus foregrounding the (un)legibility and complexity of her object.
In this exhibition, presentation, manipulation, senses and imagination intertwine. Each work is a love letter to nature as muse, as partner of the artist.
(Cees de Boer)