A garden has many facets. Plants and trees flourish, animals make it their habitat and structures deteriorate under the influence of sunshine and rainfall. Most of all, it’s a tiny piece of nature under control and in dialogue with its maker. These primal themes form the common ground on which the four artists presented in Overflowing Overgrowth build their work. They create their pieces through an organic process, intuitive, as to mimic the growth patterns of the natural world. In Garden Bart, Eirik Jahnsen, Natasha Rijkhoff, Tanja Smeets and Kokou Ferdinand Makouvia each present their perspective of the outdoors.
The distant influence of the traditional Mina culture forms the basis for the work of Kokou Ferdinand Makouvia (1989, TG, based in Amsterdam and Paris). With his sculptures he intensively inquires into the subtle materiality of all things in existence. His work comes to life through a dialogue with the energy of the material at hand, moving back and forth across a dichotomy between the shaping of matter and the channelling of energy. The organic shapes of his work are the result of a dance between his artistic skill, the surroundings and the flow of the material itself.
The natural form is also the basis for the sculptures and installations of Tanja Smeets (1963, NL, based in Utrecht). She explores the growth process of organic matter, treating her material as if it were a living being. Like invasive parasites, her sculptures form a poetic, seemingly naturally formed layer over the surface, entering in an intimate dialogue with the surroundings. The tension that arises between the matter-of-fact presence of the sculpture in its setting and the imminent danger of an uncontrollable growing organism, plays an important role in her work. The chosen materials are often common objects used in daily life, contrasting sharply with the seemingly natural pattern of the installation as a whole.
Similarly, Natasha Rijkhoff’s (1994, NL, based in Rotterdam) sculptures and fountains bring about an unearthly and unsettling feeling, through a related form of tension as created by Tanja Smeets. Her creatures, touching on both the figurative and abstract, cause a sense of displacement, while at the same time being recognizable. Set in the green outdoors, the water flowing from Natasha’s fountains has a great power of attraction on the viewer and brings about a feeling of serenity, in its reference to the garden of earthly delights.
Where water fills a central position in the work of Natasha Rijkhoff, almost every natural element lies at the core of the sculptures by Eirik Jahnsen (1985, NO, based in Groningen). His work takes shape through a continuous process that deals with material transformations, movement and our perception of what we see and feel. Using basic elements and tools such as fire, water and steel, Eirik examines the very fundamentals of nature and our primal human behaviour. He is concerned with the very essence of what makes us human: the ability to make, build and shape our environment, but also the power to destroy.