hester oerlemans | Broos
In simple compositions, Oerlemans depicts the fragility and strength of an existence that has been thrown off course by migration and globalisation.
In Hester Oerlemans' work, opposites collide: the domestic and the nomadic, the Western and the Eastern, the familiar and the foreign. In her own words, the artist is fascinated by the sudden proximity of that which comes from afar. Oerlemans: 'I am initially triggered by the colours and exotic patterns in the photographs, but also by the underlying issues of global migration, why people leave their homes and hearths.
Oerlemans does not paint with a brush but with a stencil and spray can. Her painting style verges on graffiti. The key to its energetic effectiveness is the line work, in particular that inimitable balance between precision and nonchalance, between spontaneity and perfection. It is this difficult-to-control quality that Oerlemans attempts to translate into larger-format paintings.
The performances make politics personal and the personal political, bringing abstract developments on the world stage back down to human scale. The refugee theme is also central to several designs for a monument in the form of a giant flip-flop, a plan that has not yet been realised (Refugee Monument, 2017).
The BROOS exhibition brings together paintings, drawings and sculptures. The paintings and drawings anticipate not so much the misery of migrants as the biased perception of the public. In simple compositions, Oerlemans depicts the fragility and strength of an existence that has been thrown off course by migration and globalisation.
HESTER OERLEMANS X MARIA ROOSEN x GIJS ASSMANN
Collaborating with artists is an important aspect of Hester Oerlemans' work. She sees herself not only as a curator, but also as an initiator: someone who makes it possible to realise exhibitions together with artists. In 2010, she built the Ozean project space on the grounds where her studio is located, where she could continually experiment with the space and show special solo presentations by international artists. The space existed for five years and was awarded the Berlin Senate for Culture prize in 2015 for one of the best project spaces in Berlin.
At ROOF-A, she has also created a presentation in a second space in which she engages in dialogue with fellow artists and friends Maria Roosen and Gijs Assmann. Maria Roosen's iconic pairs of breasts as givers of life, Gijs Assmann's Maria/Muse/Madonna as a source of strength and a promise for the future, and a selection of paintings by Hester Oerlemans in which she depicts, in simple compositions, the fragility and strength of an existence that has been thrown off course by migration and globalisation.
