Featured Artist
Judy Hooymeyer

Judy received the International Pegasus Award and Top Artists for her merits and continuing art. Her work explores our tenuous relationship with the continuous growth and decay of the natural world and humanity’s place within those cycles using felted wool, wax, fibres, fabrics and objects both found and recycled. Our collective fascination and repulsion towards natural processes, from blooming flowers to blooming moulds, pushes her to sculpt moments of grotesque beauty, investigating this duality through the meditative and hands-on practices of wet felting, weaving, sculpting and stitching. Her social projects engage the relationship with cultural history and find their path in action and creativity.

“My work can be seen as a confrontation between how mankind has treated nature. It also reflects on environmental concerns and addresses our (humankind’s) relationship to the natural world – as we perceive it and interact with it. We – modern society – have become increasingly disconnected from nature. We have come to see our planet as a mine to extract the resources we need to maintain our extravagant life-styles and as a dumping station for our toxic waste products. I believe, however, to secure a “habitat” for future generations (of our own species as well as others) it is essential that we tune ourselves in with nature and re-gain greater awareness of our planet, understand it better and take better stewardship of it. In my work process, I look at indigenous cultures, whose life philosophies perceive mankind as an integrated part of nature, rather than attempting to dominate over it.”

“My artworks are art/research projects. My work process starts with photo mappings, sound recordings, note-taking, writing, and research about places and their historical, societal and ecological circumstances. For the making of I am, I have used materials close to home. The wool of the sheep from the backyard farmer, plants to dye and founded material. It took me 24 months to finish this piece. It is an ongoing project what grows. My work is made with natural materials, fibres that is very tactile. Most of the time I enlarge a memory of a walk through the fields or forests and make this with the natural materials what I have. Then I place the art in a sterile area of a museum or gallery so that it becomes a new habitat. I make installations where the visitor interacts using all the senses what we forgot to use.”

“Other projects are ephemeral works in natural environments – that aim to accentuate natural features and emphasize the sublime beauty and the extraordinary of nature. While nature erases these pieces within a short time, they live on in their documentation and are later used in video installations or become photographic pieces. I am a doctor in the Philosophy and my art invites the viewer to participate in a dialogue. That is the important role for me as an artist. I create fiber art to address our relationship with the natural world. I seek to explore the spaces in between comfort and discomfort, the tension between wonder and repulsion, and the void between reverence and destruction.”

“My work for the past 20 years has used revealing aspects of history, indigenous cultures and human behaviour, which have a profound impact on our contemporary culture today. In the current climate where many believe history has no relevance, I find myself continually returning to those aspects that are often hidden or misrepresented in the “official” recordings for posterity. In my varied and diverse approaches to making art; installations, social art and objects, the context of the work has an impact on the work’s relationship to the viewer.”

“Art remains as a strong contender of how we share our thoughts and ideas. Throughout history, art has survived the tidal wave of information, and remains an unpredictable source of imagination. It has the possibilities of changing one’s thoughts, opening new ideas, and borrowing through received ideas so common to our educational system. I have no grand illusions that art will create a revolution in the traditional sense, but have witnessed the powerful changes it can make in an individual. Just one new idea can change a person’s perception.”

“The world may not change in an instant by art, but it’s slow and insipid spread into the active part of our brains lives to tell the tale. The use of materials in my work is calculated. I am often looking for avenues of the unexpected. Using materials found directly from my habitat, the object or installation gives an ironic twist to images or things you might expect. Or their combinations. Provoking a participant to new and perhaps unexplored territories. Social projects using drama, roleplay are the ingredients of social architecture. Using the body to engage architects and artists to pinpoint the needs for sustainable and green living.”

more. www. judy-hooymeyer.kunstinzicht.nl