Maria Roosen
Short Summer Special
Galerie Fons Welters - Front Space
22 May – 13 Jun 2020
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With every Short Summer Special we have asked a young writer to do a Q&A with the artist. Here done by Lotte van Geijn.
Frozen energy
In conversation with Maria Roosen
Your watercolours have been given remarkable frames!
The drawing and the frame belong together ever since Brancusi made the pedestal part of the sculpture. Since I was looking for a baroque frame, I went to a frame maker to look at gold frames. But they refer to the 17th century and these watercolors are contemporary. It didn't feel right. Then I started experimenting with egg cartons at home. I had them printed in 3D and cast in polyurethane. The shape of the egg carton adds something to the artwork. It is a shape close to home and the material has a contemporary look.
How did you come up with the egg carton?
I was frustrated and tried to draw a frame, but it didn't work. Then I started experimenting with cardboard and successfully. The egg carton is an utensil. I like utensils. As with the shape of a hammer and saw, it is a shape that touches the essentials, only the essentials. This coincides with the watercolours. The frame is part of the research.
Where do your subjects come from?
They are time documents. A rose and a candle flame are difficult to draw. They move, live, change quickly and are therefore hard to grasp. I work outwards from perception: such as shape, colour and smell. I look at the situation. But I also work inward from perception. When I see a faded rose in my studio, I go inside. Where am I and what emotion is behind it? I work investigative and portray it clearly and powerfully and above all honestly. I want to work as well as possible technically. If a colour should be smooth, I want it to be smooth as well.
The watercolours often have something physical.
They are portraits in my body. Situations I have to deal with. It is very important that imagination can take place. Imagination is a way to understand emotions, to make them more bearable. It is never nice to start with new watercolours. Making watercolours is confrontational. When I start I am too much in my head. A mess of ideas. There is a process of clearing my head. Sometimes I challenge myself by making the work too big. So I have to physically walk around it. That is one way to get more into the drawing. By not being able to oversee it anymore. They are self-portraits, sometimes medicinal drawings. It is a struggle every time. Where is everyone in my body? Where is what? But the watercolour which comes from it is a good drawing. An image that does something to you and shows something new from which I can move forward.
Do you draw a watercolour at once?
Making a watercolour can only be honest. As soon as I do something forced or adjust it later, you will see it immediately. I do practice on a small size. To find out what the effect of a certain amount of water is and what one colour does to another. But after that I have to draw it all at once. It is the energy of the moment I capture. A watercolour is a frozen energy. This is why it is very important that when I start working I have no other engagements. I really have the time. That freedom is needed. Halfway through the process, the watercolour may ask for something I had not anticipated. The watercolour starts talking back. A dialogue ensues. At such moments I can still intervene. Do something about it! I push the limits, take it a step further. The moment something happens that I couldn't have foreseen is when I get something back from the watercolour. It is is very valuable. For me that's what it’s all about.
[Lotte van Geijn (1985, Amsterdam) is an artist and writer and currently resident at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. Translation by GFW.]