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Determined Eye
“Mountains of color,” I said when I visited Yasmine Willems’ studio. Mountains of color, mountains of creamy blue paint, frozen in peaks on her worktable. In a cabinet stood jars of pigments, ready for when the artist would want to work with egg tempera again, just as our miniature painters did in the fifteenth century.
Today, Yasmine Willems works with oil paint. She paints layer upon layer, patiently waiting as each layer dries. This drying time turns painting into a thoughtful, prolonged process, in which the work itself indicates which decisions are effective and which are not. “I like to surprise myself.” Layer upon layer creates unusually deep colors. The result in this recent series of paintings is, at first glance, a fiery, shimmering blue.
The paintings are connected to the remote polders where the artist lives, but they are not traditional landscapes, nor are they impressions or snapshots. The polders surround, protect, and provide calm and concentration; day in, day out, the wind and clouds change, mist obscures, rain showers pass over, rising or descending darkness compresses the light in the evening, dew appears. None of this can be controlled by humans, but the human mind naturally sees patterns in what seems to happen randomly: pareidolia. Looking at the man in the moon with the bundle on his back, or at NASA photos of the Horsehead Nebula or the Pillars of Creation, these are familiar forms of seeing pareidolia.
Identifying pareidolia was for a long time a technical exercise for artists: Leonardo da Vinci advised his colleagues to look at moisture stains on walls, mud, rocks, and clouds, and recognize things in them – this sharpened their visual abilities. “Unclear things stimulate the mind to new inventions.” Later, in the sixteenth century, artists in Augsburg worked on a Book of Wonders, with stunning illustrations of miraculous signs in the heavens, described in the Bible, observed or predicted: comets, sundogs, fires, dragons, warriors in the clouds, battling angels.
What lies in the space between what we know and what we see? That question arose for the artist as she observed the clouds and wind over the polders and dikes. The cloud is a symbol of the elusive divine in the Old Testament, and ‘wind’ there also means breath and spirit. In this series of paintings, the clouds are uncontrollable, free, and transcendent. They behold the world beneath them with a determined, sometimes touching eye. Rain drips into a sea of tears. Stacked rectangles at the lower edge represent a human attempt at grasp and understanding, a futile practice of control: the building of a temple? A green path disappears into a point on the horizon, black celestial bodies complete their orbit, dew rises in milky crystalline columns. Between clouds and earth, a vertical band forms. The wonder of Jacob's Ladder can also be found in everyday environments.
While fiery blue is the first color that strikes the viewer, the bold use of black and white is also noticeable in these paintings. Yasmine Willems likes to let her scenes rise from a black background. It’s a somewhat unconventional working method, a free approach to color and color theory, nourished by personal preference, the Book of Wonders, and admired masters like James Ensor and Jean Brusselmans.
What lies in the space between what we already know and what we see? For centuries, artists have visualized scientific findings in drawings (such as of the skeleton, the circulatory system), in diagrams, maps, and astronomical illustrations. They have also, as Jan Van Eyck did, paved the way for insight and science by exploring our visual experience (such as of light reflection). The patterns and pareidolia that Yasmine Willems shows us make us suspect how vast the space between knowing and understanding might still be. With her pareidolia, she opens up possibilities, paving a path for us toward a viewpoint that offers more than half-understood science and vague feelings. She gives us a fresh look at a territory we have barely begun to explore.
© Leen Huet
“Mountains of color,” I said when I visited Yasmine Willems’ studio. Mountains of color, mountains of creamy blue paint, frozen in peaks on her worktable. In a cabinet stood jars of pigments, ready for when the artist would want to work with egg tempera again, just as our miniature painters did in the fifteenth century.
Today, Yasmine Willems works with oil paint. She paints layer upon layer, patiently waiting as each layer dries. This drying time turns painting into a thoughtful, prolonged process, in which the work itself indicates which decisions are effective and which are not. “I like to surprise myself.” Layer upon layer creates unusually deep colors. The result in this recent series of paintings is, at first glance, a fiery, shimmering blue.
The paintings are connected to the remote polders where the artist lives, but they are not traditional landscapes, nor are they impressions or snapshots. The polders surround, protect, and provide calm and concentration; day in, day out, the wind and clouds change, mist obscures, rain showers pass over, rising or descending darkness compresses the light in the evening, dew appears. None of this can be controlled by humans, but the human mind naturally sees patterns in what seems to happen randomly: pareidolia. Looking at the man in the moon with the bundle on his back, or at NASA photos of the Horsehead Nebula or the Pillars of Creation, these are familiar forms of seeing pareidolia.
Identifying pareidolia was for a long time a technical exercise for artists: Leonardo da Vinci advised his colleagues to look at moisture stains on walls, mud, rocks, and clouds, and recognize things in them – this sharpened their visual abilities. “Unclear things stimulate the mind to new inventions.” Later, in the sixteenth century, artists in Augsburg worked on a Book of Wonders, with stunning illustrations of miraculous signs in the heavens, described in the Bible, observed or predicted: comets, sundogs, fires, dragons, warriors in the clouds, battling angels.
What lies in the space between what we know and what we see? That question arose for the artist as she observed the clouds and wind over the polders and dikes. The cloud is a symbol of the elusive divine in the Old Testament, and ‘wind’ there also means breath and spirit. In this series of paintings, the clouds are uncontrollable, free, and transcendent. They behold the world beneath them with a determined, sometimes touching eye. Rain drips into a sea of tears. Stacked rectangles at the lower edge represent a human attempt at grasp and understanding, a futile practice of control: the building of a temple? A green path disappears into a point on the horizon, black celestial bodies complete their orbit, dew rises in milky crystalline columns. Between clouds and earth, a vertical band forms. The wonder of Jacob's Ladder can also be found in everyday environments.
While fiery blue is the first color that strikes the viewer, the bold use of black and white is also noticeable in these paintings. Yasmine Willems likes to let her scenes rise from a black background. It’s a somewhat unconventional working method, a free approach to color and color theory, nourished by personal preference, the Book of Wonders, and admired masters like James Ensor and Jean Brusselmans.
What lies in the space between what we already know and what we see? For centuries, artists have visualized scientific findings in drawings (such as of the skeleton, the circulatory system), in diagrams, maps, and astronomical illustrations. They have also, as Jan Van Eyck did, paved the way for insight and science by exploring our visual experience (such as of light reflection). The patterns and pareidolia that Yasmine Willems shows us make us suspect how vast the space between knowing and understanding might still be. With her pareidolia, she opens up possibilities, paving a path for us toward a viewpoint that offers more than half-understood science and vague feelings. She gives us a fresh look at a territory we have barely begun to explore.
© Leen Huet
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Yasmine Willems
1985, Lier
Woont en werkt te Hengstdijk, Nederland
OPLEIDING
2003-2007 Meester in de beeldende kunsten, schilderkunst
Sint Lucas Hogeschool, Antwerp, Belgium
SOLOTENTOONSTELLINGEN
2012 Expansion of the imaginary garden, Bibliotheekcomplex Tweebronnen Leuven
2012 Horizon, VZW Untitled Antwerpen
2011 The idea of the flat earth, Yard Gallery Leuven
2021 Kalender, Shoobil Gallery Antwerpen
2023 Rubato, Shoobil Gallery Antwerpen
GROEPTENTOONSTELLINGEN
2023 DMW gallery Antwerpen
2013 At Random, cultureel centrum en stadsmuseum Menen
2013 Time to pretend, Diestsestraat Leuven
2012 Prijs voor schilderkunst Ernest Albert, cultureel centrum Mechelen
2011 TO-GET-THER(E), ASAP Genk
2011 Bedtime Duologes Im Winter, Voormalige Matrassenfabriek Devis Mechelen
2010 On Nights and Horses, Hof ter Saksen Beveren
2010 Lost Hallway, cultureel centrum Mechelen
2009 Rodenbach Fonds Awards, De Markten, Brussel
2009 Kunst Labo, Site Delghust Ronse
2008 Out of control goes wide, cc Torhout, cc Mechelen
2008 Gaverprijs 2008, cc de Schakel, Waregem
2007 Gery Christmas Show, Maes & Matthijs Gallery, Antwerpen
2007 Out of Control, VUB GallerY, Brussel
2007 Afstudeerprojecten, vrije kunsten, Sint Lucas Antwerpen
2007 7 in a State of Art, Dominicuskerk, Antwerpen
2006 ACADEMY Douze Points, MuHKA, Antwerpen
2022 Lust For Life, De Melkerij, Veltem Beisem
WEDSTRIJDEN
2012 Selectie Prijs voor Schilderkunst Ernest Albert
2009 Rodenbach Fonds Awards 2009, tweede laureaat
2008 Prijs voor schilderkunst, Gaverprijs 2008, tweede laureaat
PUBLICATIES
2011 Streven 2011/01, De illusionaire landschappen van Yasmine Willems (in dialoog met Andreas Peeters)
2011 Coverproject Streven 2011
LEZING
2014 Lezing Heilig-Graf Instituut Turnhout
1985, Lier
Woont en werkt te Hengstdijk, Nederland
OPLEIDING
2003-2007 Meester in de beeldende kunsten, schilderkunst
Sint Lucas Hogeschool, Antwerp, Belgium
SOLOTENTOONSTELLINGEN
2012 Expansion of the imaginary garden, Bibliotheekcomplex Tweebronnen Leuven
2012 Horizon, VZW Untitled Antwerpen
2011 The idea of the flat earth, Yard Gallery Leuven
2021 Kalender, Shoobil Gallery Antwerpen
2023 Rubato, Shoobil Gallery Antwerpen
GROEPTENTOONSTELLINGEN
2023 DMW gallery Antwerpen
2013 At Random, cultureel centrum en stadsmuseum Menen
2013 Time to pretend, Diestsestraat Leuven
2012 Prijs voor schilderkunst Ernest Albert, cultureel centrum Mechelen
2011 TO-GET-THER(E), ASAP Genk
2011 Bedtime Duologes Im Winter, Voormalige Matrassenfabriek Devis Mechelen
2010 On Nights and Horses, Hof ter Saksen Beveren
2010 Lost Hallway, cultureel centrum Mechelen
2009 Rodenbach Fonds Awards, De Markten, Brussel
2009 Kunst Labo, Site Delghust Ronse
2008 Out of control goes wide, cc Torhout, cc Mechelen
2008 Gaverprijs 2008, cc de Schakel, Waregem
2007 Gery Christmas Show, Maes & Matthijs Gallery, Antwerpen
2007 Out of Control, VUB GallerY, Brussel
2007 Afstudeerprojecten, vrije kunsten, Sint Lucas Antwerpen
2007 7 in a State of Art, Dominicuskerk, Antwerpen
2006 ACADEMY Douze Points, MuHKA, Antwerpen
2022 Lust For Life, De Melkerij, Veltem Beisem
WEDSTRIJDEN
2012 Selectie Prijs voor Schilderkunst Ernest Albert
2009 Rodenbach Fonds Awards 2009, tweede laureaat
2008 Prijs voor schilderkunst, Gaverprijs 2008, tweede laureaat
PUBLICATIES
2011 Streven 2011/01, De illusionaire landschappen van Yasmine Willems (in dialoog met Andreas Peeters)
2011 Coverproject Streven 2011
LEZING
2014 Lezing Heilig-Graf Instituut Turnhout
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