In my recent work themes like ‘silence’, concentration, focus, form, repetition and rhythm are important. There lies a power in repetition (patterns or the use of a grid) and in perseverance within the process of making the work. I am using these elements in my search for stillness; stillness or silence during the making, but also for the spectator. With the word silence I don’t mean lacking human sound, but rather silence as an equivalent of inner peace and joy. Silence as a form of positive emptiness (from the inside) so that there is an actual space to be able see and perceive the things around you anew. This is why visual soberness has become more and more important to me. The Perfect Dot is the result of a ‘concentration- exercise’. It is a rol of paper of 10x1 meters, filled with small circles, with the goal of trying to draw the perfect dot in a grid of dots, without the help of a measuring tool or a grid line. Knowing that humans are not able to reach perfection, but often still strive for it. I don’t see my work only as an ‘abstraction’, but more as a conversation or a musical score. Like a composition with a ‘continuo’ (the basis for a piece or the ‘grid’) in it. The human hand makes sure there is a ‘vibration in the form or melody’ (the nearly, not 100% perfect alignment in the spaces between the repetitions) because, even though I try to make it as perfect as I can, I am simply not a machine. With my works I want to create a moment for inner stillness. Or a momentum between the spectator and the work - as a kind of wordless conversation, something between speech and silence.
Artworks by Zaida Oenema
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