A & O

2018-2020

The starting point of the A&O installation is in the time before the corona, before the war in Europe. It is a threatening image containing fear, but also hope, suffering, but also joy. I painted the installation oil/textile collage during a severe failed dental implant treatment, when the doctor who treated me committed suicide in addition to the suffering. To recover from the experience, I immersed myself in making art, a method that has served as therapy during the most difficult moments of life.

The children dancing happily in the old flour sifter is a picture of a traditional embroidery work, which I removed as a wallpaper on one side of the sieve, after which I freely wrote the dancing children on the sieve. The oil on canvas painting has a fabric embroidery base with other meaningful objects, one of which is a shield my son made "against the evil" when he was a child (I found it in our wood shed years later), and small Chinese slippers that reinforce the pictorial narrative's message of hope. We find it in a child's gaze and trust. Even in the midst of difficult times, one should not despair.
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