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Dutch artist Phil Bloom (1945)gained recognition in the late sixties for her innovative and daring performances, among others in the VPRO program "Hoepla." Her work as a visual artist, encompassing photography, paintings, drawings, and films of performances, is less known to a wide audience.
For her surrealist drawings and paintings, Phil Bloom draws inspiration from the treasure trove of her (day)dreams and from the mythical figures and artistic traditions of other cultures she encountered on her travels to America, India, Japan, Russia, and Lapland. In her canvases, painted with the alla prima technique of oil paint, she plays with opposites: good and evil, guilt and innocence, life and death. Her paintings and drawings evoke a magical world and tell the story of how she participates in the world as a woman. In her fantasy world, women are surrounded by symbolic animals such as Disney's iconic cartoon characters, the elephant god Ganesh from India, and the ancient deer from Russia and Lapland. At the same time, with a touch of humor, Phil Bloom depicts her engagement with all the big questions of our time and comments on war violence, the bio-industry, the robotization of society, and the disappearance of biodiversity in which insects play a significant role. In the nineties, Phil Bloom made moving images on video for the first time and continued to build on the performances of the sixties.
Her work has been featured in several solo exhibitions and numerous group exhibitions in galleries and museums. It is high time to dedicate a major retrospective exhibition to her oeuvre, a review of an idiosyncratic, versatile, and fascinating artistic career spanning more than 50 years.
For her surrealist drawings and paintings, Phil Bloom draws inspiration from the treasure trove of her (day)dreams and from the mythical figures and artistic traditions of other cultures she encountered on her travels to America, India, Japan, Russia, and Lapland. In her canvases, painted with the alla prima technique of oil paint, she plays with opposites: good and evil, guilt and innocence, life and death. Her paintings and drawings evoke a magical world and tell the story of how she participates in the world as a woman. In her fantasy world, women are surrounded by symbolic animals such as Disney's iconic cartoon characters, the elephant god Ganesh from India, and the ancient deer from Russia and Lapland. At the same time, with a touch of humor, Phil Bloom depicts her engagement with all the big questions of our time and comments on war violence, the bio-industry, the robotization of society, and the disappearance of biodiversity in which insects play a significant role. In the nineties, Phil Bloom made moving images on video for the first time and continued to build on the performances of the sixties.
Her work has been featured in several solo exhibitions and numerous group exhibitions in galleries and museums. It is high time to dedicate a major retrospective exhibition to her oeuvre, a review of an idiosyncratic, versatile, and fascinating artistic career spanning more than 50 years.
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