Galerie Helder is pleased to announce its participation in the upcoming edition of Unseen Amsterdam, taking place from September 17 until September 19, 2021.
We are proud to present works by
- Shigeo Arikawa (1982, JP)
- Hans Lemmen (1959, NL)
- Marcel Wesdorp (1965, NL)
Photographer and film-maker Shigeo Arikawa confronts us with our own perception and bias. He researches and directs his material from different sensory experiences. The latter is usually associated with the personal memories and preferences from one’s own culture.
“We seek out symbols and meaning in the image so as to recognize and comprehend; it is inevitable that we add information to the image. Discoveries vary greatly from viewer to viewer, depending on their social, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds and experiences, as well as their frame of mind and emotions in that instant. That is, the image constantly reinvents itself in the present, and includes the past as memories.”
In the ‘Self-portraits’ Arikawa makes the depth of field of his objects into subject. In these static images, he elaborates the terms focusing and framing, related to the process of perception. The title of these photo works refers to his own hand, although invisible, in fact being part of the image.
In the series ‘Voice-over’ Arikawa adds moving images in a short loop on a small monitor. Soundless lip movements evoke even more associations here about the static image above. This recent work can be seen as a new mirror and explanation of how the current visual culture can continue to rage in our being.
Born in the Netherlands and graduated at Willem de Kooning Academy Rotterdam, Marcel Wesdorp followed the advanced programme in photography at St. Joost Academy in Breda. He creates computerized animations of inner landscapes. They are usually in many shades of grey and with any absence of people, flora and fauna. Prints of these digitally developed areas appear to be real photographs, uniquely named by their specific xyz domain coordinates. But at second glance you will be struck by its enigmatic presence.
Wesdorp challenges the viewers to fathom what is going on in their perception of his artwork. His goal is always clear in mind. In the search for it, he experiences various stages in which the original idea develops into the final form. Transformation of the idea into “the work of art itself” is the essence of his work. This exploratory path gives pleasure to the unbearable lightness of his artistic life.
Apart from the purely software-based techniques, the collection and modelling of existing satellite data and maps is a second intricate field of work of the artist. His research to construct new works of art that reveal something of the enigmatic presence of mind has yielded very different and fascinating works, ranging from film, print, book to installation. More recently, Wesdorp has carefully allowed colour into his works. He continues to explore new ways at the interface of reality and beyond.
Hans Lemmen is mainly known as a sculpturer and draughtsman of animals and manlike figures in indefinable landscapes. The rich (pre-)historical environment where he lives and works is his direct connection to our intriguing human history. He is particularly fascinated by the relationship between man and animal. His meetings over the years with kindred spirits, such as photographer and film-maker Roger Ballen (ZA) brought new challenges to express his artistic skill.
Lemmen also came across the work of photographer Tarek Ode, who for years has passionately documented, for archaeologists and for himself, the prehistoric traces of the Guanches, first inhabitants of the Canary Islands. Lemmen was provided with some dozens photographs out of his archive: tranquil mountain or desert landscapes with archaeological sites. By scratching off parts of the photo and drawing upon them with charcoal he created a wonderful chemistry between drawing and photograph.
A stay on Fuerteventura showed him graves from before the Spanish era, but also contem- porary, improvised graves with inscriptions scratched into the cement, of people washed-up on the beach. His new work was thus unwillingly related to very topical issues. The ancient and the new tombs, the tired, drying island, refugees and mass tourism, they merge in it, just like photograph and drawing.