With swift and bold brushstrokes painter Vera Kersting (1997) creates scenes that seek to transcend boundaries and dualisms. Her works are often unheimlich, eery meditations on spaces in-between that merge past – present, fiction – reality, distance – intimacy, aggression – contemplation, subject – object. In her series I had to bow she said, Kersting interprets her grand-mother’s memories on her internment in a Japanese concentration camp in Indonesia during WWII.
“I had to bow she said is a project based on family memories of the Japanese internment camp in Indonesia. Personal narratives led to research on the history of Indonesia, including the 1965 Coupe, and Western imperialism.