The Artist in Her Studio
Large salmon-coloured, geometric forms -not too neatly shaped- play a leading role in the new series The Artist in Her Studio by Fleur van Dodewaard. These figures represent the artist herself. As an artist in her studio, relaxed in an armchair looking out of the window, or lying outside in the grass. She is inspired by historical photographs of artists at work in their studios and paintings of a posing model by some famous painters from the last century that we all know, but will not mention again.
In The Artist in Her Studio Van Dodewaard balances between art historical themes and various mediums as is typical in her work. The body, hovering over figuration and abstraction, is central. Unlike before, this time it is about herself. She reflects on her role as a human being, artist, woman, mother in this world. And asks you as a viewer to do the same. The self-portrait, the nude model between the plant pots, and the familiar image of 'the artist in his studio' all rise up in the air and fall into place in a new structure.
The work reflects on the intensified revolutionary awareness that is currently taking place in which we start to realise ourselves that the world was primarily created from a white male perspective, in art history and beyond. So now there is the realisation that changing this is the only way forward.
In The Artist in Her Studio Van Dodewaard draws all the roles, perspectives and mediums to herself, and braids them together into a new autonomous whole. She creates a form in which everything is one: subject, maker, model, body, art object, sculpture, painting or painted object, and its representation.
A form in which the historically dominant perspective, that of the man with the clothes on, has been cut out for the time being.
With elementary materials - wood, paper, clay, tape, paint - Fleur van Dodewaard creates temporary compositions that play with the possibilities of photography, sculpture, and painting. Situated at the intersection of these disciplines, her work uses photography as the final result. Questions relating to the art object, discourses about the creative process and image making, and art historical references are fundamental to her investigations. They provide the terms of an ongoing tumbling and cross-relating of old and new images, objects, ideas, and forms.