28 december 2021, Wouter van den Eijkel
Inspired by Icons | The unique collaboration of Maayke Schuitema with Anouk van Tetering
During the first lockdown, artist friends Maayke Schuitema and Anouk van Tetering suddenly had time to spare. They decided to make a series about the objects and the people that inspire them both. Van Tetering took pictures of the objects, enlarged them, and asked Schuitema to come up with a storyline and execute it on the same paper. “You can only do a project like this if you know each other very well, because it's about giving freedom and taking space”.
At first glance, there are few similarities between the work of Anouk van Tetering and that of Maayke Schuitema. One is a photographer and the other works with linocuts and makes drawings. Schuitema tells stories through portraits. Usually large female nudes that she creates by printing huge linocuts on special paper. The linoprints with touches of acrylic paint and pencil refer to black-and-white photography, poster art and graphic novels.
Photographer Anouk van Tetering has been collecting small objects such as perfume bottles, boxes, jewelery and concert tickets for a long time, which occupy an important place in popular culture, but which often also have a personal story attached. The objects once belonged to someone before they fell into disuse and lurked in a drawer somewhere until Van Tetering bought them.
During the lockdown, Van Tetering and Schuitema decided to create a series of work around these items. Together they tell documentary-style stories about well-known icons of popular culture that inspire them. According to gallerist Pien Rademakers, the fact that the collaboration worked out so well is the result of the friendship between the two artists. “You can only do a project like this if you know each other very well, because it's about giving freedom and taking space. I also think that makes it interesting”, says Rademakers. "Just imagine: this part with only the photo on the paper went from Anouk's studio to Maayke's studio." In this way they became each other's sources of inspiration.
Maayke Schuitema, Anouk Tetering, Audrey, 2021, Rademakers Gallery.
Tiffany’s Key
One of the objects that Anouk collected is a piece of jewelry in the shape of a key from the American jeweler Tiffany. The key is dented and is therefore less valuable. That is no problem for Van Tetering; the dents give it a personal touch. She breathed new life into the key by enlarging and printing it, including dents. Schuitema was then given all the freedom to find a suitable storyline and ended up with Breakfast at Tiffany's, the famous film from 1961 featuring Audrey Hepburn. She drew Hepburn and the stylized text.
Rademakers: “You buy this work with the key. You are actually buying a whole history. You wonder: who ever bought that key? In the Netherlands or in America? Who wore it? Why was it discarded? The whole storytelling is incorporated in it.”
Maayke Schuitema, Anouk Tetering, Bob Marley, 2021, Rademakers Gallery.
This also applies to the work that includes the ticket for the last concert Bob Marley ever gave. Marley was already seriously ill at the time. “You buy the ticket, you buy the bell jar containing the ticket, and you buy the work. In fact, what you buy is a piece of history of an iconic artist.” Because the card takes up relatively little space on the paper, Schuitema was given a lot of space here for her ode to Marley.
Maayke Schuitema, Anouk Tetering, History of Bottle Design, 2021, Rademakers Gallery.
Chanel No.5
In the work History of Bottle Design, the design of the Chanel No.5 bottle is revealed. Like the perfume, the bottle dates from 1921, but a lot has been done to the design of the bottle since then. The design goes back to the shape of whiskey bottles, a symbol of masculinity. “That such a thing forms the basis of a bottle for a woman is, of course, very emancipatory. It is therefore not a frumpy bottle, it is a very cool bottle. Partly for this reason, Andy Warhol depicted the bottle on one of his silkscreens in 1980. So this design has inspired several generations of artists.”
