Texts

Statement

Snoek's work is the result of years of efforts and experience in the art world. She has practiced as a painter and graphic artist since 1993, when she graduated.

In her studio in The Hague (The Netherlands) she developed the ability to shift from one genre to another over the years with the simplicity and sensitivity that only great artists have and are capable of. As a result, the observer can easily see, especially in her latest works, where the simplicity, the surface, the texture, the shape, the thickness, the angles along with the colours become the main characteristics of her artworks.

But, don't get me wrong, her work is much more than that; Evelyn's art is all about extraordinary creativity, freedom — expressed by the magnificent use of colours — awareness, and her elegant ability to create artworks that are able to talk directly and explicitly to the audience in a very distinctive and remarkable way.

It seems like every single piece has a mysterious, interesting and fascinating story to tell. They look so intense and deep that you cannot simply watch them — there is some sort of uncontrollable power that forces you to stare at them for ages, trying to understand the secret confined into each of them.

Evelyn has this visionary and innovative way of making art that immediately makes her work stand out from the crowd. I would not call her pieces neither paintings nor sculptures — they are much more complex than that, and it is not easy to categorise what she does; perhaps the best way to name them is "wall sculpture," which means the perfect combination and balance between the two forms of art. Her work is bold, provocative and sexy due to its three-dimensional shape. It engages people in a very sensual, sassy and yet smart way.

Looking at her work is like submerging yourself into layers and layers of time, space, fluidity, colour and virtuosity — all those elements that she tested, studied and finally mastered after years of hard work and practice. You end up hypnotised by the depth and powerful charm that they emanate. They have that ability to let people into her intimacy, into her world made of freedom and joy. You will immediately feel ecstatic in front of one of her pieces of art because she is capable of making people dream and crave after her work.

In her practice the process is key: the multi-layers sediment — each one — for a long time, and it takes ages to complete a single piece, like those Renaissance Italian painters whose astonishing frescos, still now, after centuries, decorating the most beautiful and breath-taking churches and palaces, have changed the way to look at, understand and interpret art in the history of humankind.

This long process adorns her work and makes it look so intense and precious that you feel the desire to dive into it, to be embraced by the depth of its colour and the powerful and vibrant energy that it releases. Eye-catching, good looking and yummy — because looking at it makes you feel an incredible desire of biting a piece of it, like a delicate and tempting slice of cake.

Those above are just a few of the adjectives to describe what she makes, but it is also — and above all — a thoughtful, precious and elegant work.

Snoek's work is about life: that is why every single piece of hers has its own good-looking body and wonderful soul.

"The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts."

— Marcus Aurelius

3mtr LOOF

Speaking of distance: 3 metres of Loof — that is precisely the distance Evelyn Snoek is given, and needs, to convince us that, through her intuition and spatial approach, she knows herself connected to Terri Brooks and Harmen van der Tuin. From the stockroom she casts sightlines toward the work of the main exhibitors. Evelyn Snoek too cherishes material research, and she too uses form and matter to penetrate to the essence of art. The artistic findings are of a different nature and character, but there is indeed a kinship of spirit with her fellow exhibitors.

Via an alternative back route, Evelyn Snoek minimizes the distance between their work and her invigorating art. The application of ordering principles, thinking in terms of texture and structure, and working with stacking effects underline that distance only truly disappears when something is made tangible. For all art expressions that make ideas tangible lift the distance between the viewer and the artwork — it is that experience of unification through which we can be touched or moved, literally and figuratively.

Quote from opening words by Wim van der Beek

KOPFKINO

KOPFKINO — processes, events, happenings unfolding only or mainly in the imagination, in one's own power of imagination. That's what I want to talk about: fragments from the Kopfkinos of Hans and Evelyn — one an old acquaintance and good friend, the other a new face and work unknown to me until then.

What struck me immediately is that with both of them you only see fragments, small pieces of story, glimpses beneath veils. With Hans, where comics and film stills have so clearly become a language, you see a flat image, at most two colours, enlarged into a scene that strikes me as boyishly dreamy. With Evelyn you see bombs of colour and matter — clenched energy that, because of the form, the folding together, the closing up again, concentrated onto so few square centimetres, simply has to become 3D; it gets pressed and pushed from the frame into space.

Evelyn is painting, but she is past the painting. She stacks, pours, folds, pushes and pulls and regroups. The sky-is-the-limit expanse it once was is brought back by her with discipline, concentrated once again into a grid of seductive, enigmatic, object-like material things. The sum of the parts is a collection that exists mysteriously, of guardians that seem to be watching over something — except for the work Window, which flaps it right out, almost brazen in the presentation of her reality.

But we as viewers have that power of imagination too — let us reward ourselves by wresting the secrets out with our own Vorstellungskraft, and thank the artists for the works offered to us, which are so beautiful, and in which there is so much to experience.

Over het werk

The problem of defining what a painting actually is, without falling into formal statements, becomes harder as the work becomes more personal and comes closer to the viewer. It enters into a relationship, without acquiring a face.

"A painting is not a window through which you can look into the distance; three-dimensional effects are pure illusion. A painting is a flat surface with paint on it."

Earlier abstract painters had recognised the importance of flatness, but did not know how to proceed further. Until a moment came when the flat surface was no longer used as a carrier for a recognisable image, but as an arena for an event, a happening. A next step is to take the canvas off its stretcher and regard it as an object — almost declared to be sculpture. The art of painting of Evelyn Snoek is a plea to forget what you have learned about painting, and to forget what exactly you have seen in the process. It is an investigation into the foundations of painting itself, and at the same time an exploration of what colour means in a space.

The studio is overflowing with remnants: dried paint, torn linen, packaging material spattered with paint, stacks of stained containers. But then suddenly a regularity stands out. The remnants of dried paint turn out to form a stack, a sculpture in the shape of a box, or a new, thick painting — pieces of thickly painted canvas, taken off the frame, laid on top of each other so that a thickness, a volume, arises: sheets of paint, skins of colour. There is little form, there are no lines, no contours; there is only matter and colour left.

When you walk into the studio, that is the first thing you see: a collection of colourful little diamonds, glittering toffee wrappers, a dazzling treasury full of colour. You would want to place everything on a white wall, or lay it on a table like a collection of shells or beautifully coloured pieces of glass. But they are indeed paintings, even though they do not appear to meet what we understand a painting to be. They are also sculptures, paint sculptures that forcefully determine the space. There is no reticence whatsoever, no embarrassment — she does what she deems necessary.

Remnants of painted linen are cut up and woven back together, paint scrapings smeared on top of one another, layer upon layer, so that a new image is formed. Controlled explosions of paint — and that control is important. Everything is precisely directed; she knows exactly what she is doing. You are not looking at a pile of seemingly carelessly stacked painted cloths — it is a stack that is now a paint object, arranged with the utmost precision, the right number, fitting in the only right way.

There is an absolute necessity for the work of Evelyn Snoek. It is minimalistic, fundamental and conceptual — but also very romantic at the same time. You fall for the fantastic colours and shapes, you are immediately invited to make up stories, and your curiosity is aroused at what happened on those canvases before. It is as if splendid landscapes, still lifes and nudes were created in the past, then trampled and torn as if in an explosion — and then, on closer inspection, reconstructed, intertwined, rolled up, the paint regrouped, the discarded pieces of linen put on top of each other. Everything in a new arrangement, in a different order, and completely under control.

It is like the end of a long journey; there are no roads left, yet we must go on.

Recycle

In the work of Evelyn Snoek, the reuse of materials is increasingly the subject of her art. In recent work she even manages to leave out the image carrier and to show only gestures in paint, bringing her work back to its essence — a deliberate, interesting choice after a development of years of painterly research.

The intensive, many-sided research of the past ten years shows the struggles with material and image carrier. In small works, woven textile is imitated in thick layers of acrylic and oil paint applied in a monochrome colour, so that the whole looks like worked stone or concrete ("Tastbaar" / "Tangible," 2003). In another series, no illusion of weaving is painted, but actual weaving is done with various materials — strips of tape and painted strips of textile, reused materials from an earlier process of making, rearranged so that an intriguing new work arises while the traces of earlier actions remain clearly visible ("Weefwerk" / "Weaving," 2003).

Later the tape is applied even more freely, and spatial images arise that seem to be in motion across the image carrier, exposing the stretcher frame ("Plooibaar" / "Pliable," 2006). In "Multi" (2008), fragments of dried layers of paint are applied anew onto a canvas, creating an exciting collage of form and colour. Combinations of tape and painted bands lead to an expressionist play of lines in "Kanteling" / "Tilting" (2009). In "Vierkant" / "Square" (2011), the work consists only of the detached painted canvas. In "Folded" and "Rol" / "Roll," the canvas is rolled up or folded — the painting has become a spatial object, the image no longer visible, which makes the viewer curious about what lies beneath.

In "Veld" / "Field" (2011), Snoek arrives at the essence of her work: the paint has been detached from the image carrier entirely. A fragile, thin layer of acrylic and oil paint remains, fixed directly against a wall or lying on the floor.

Yet the recent work is not an endpoint after thorough research. A minimalist working method has arisen that can, at a given moment, be reused once again. Recycled layers of paint may ultimately reappear on canvas or on other image carriers. Reused material is rearranged once more into figurative or abstract forms. The machine has begun again from the start.

Creating the Void

"Zwart Vierkant" / "Black Surface," 2011

Sometimes a painting is put through quite a lot — if it is even still a painting — so that it changes into a different kind of statement about the art of painting. Evelyn Snoek presents a horizontal painting that has literally been unfolded; it looks like a messy square with flaps at the sides, an object that has been through quite a lot. Roughly, the procedure was as follows: the painting is covered with layers of paint, over which yet another black layer is applied, then dragged across the floor and finally covered in black once more. It carries the traces of that.

The viewer can pity the painting — it is in a pitiable condition. But you can also reason differently: when we picture the essence of being human, we don't think in terms of exuberant beauty, eagerness to please, decoration. By every standard this painting is still a painting: paint on a carrier. It is not exuberant, it does not want to please; it is what it is, stripped of all incidentals — unremarkable in material terms, but immaterially unbroken, because unbreakable.

It has been dragged across the floor, made black, unfolded, and still it is a painting. You could call it a deconstructed painting, but a deconstructed painting is still a painting, because that identity is determined by the presence of two elements in relation to each other: paint and a carrier. However much you try to make the painting small, it apparently keeps surviving. This work is a descendant of the Black Square, carried out in three dimensions — even when a painting is reduced to almost nothing, this iconoclastic approach yields the foundations of a new image, just as throughout the whole of art history destruction has always been followed again by a new image.

"Window," 2011

A comparable story is told by another painting, a vertical rectangle that must once have been a single picture plane, onto which mainly parallel horizontal bands have been applied in two restrained greyish-blue tints, plus a number of seemingly random red spots of paint — automatically referring to a minimal, serial, abstract-expressionist tradition, pillars of modernism. But those hardly matter any more, because roughly halfway up the height of the work the canvas has been cut loose from its frame, so that the edges of the original painting now function as the frame, and the canvas that once sat inside it has been folded down, showing its reverse side — and that reverse side is black. Black like the Black Square, black like the maltreated painting discussed above.

Literally behind formality and expression there is still a black monochrome that can be brought to the front, and behind that, in turn, is the white wall — the "real" material world, part of the white cube. By cutting away the canvas on the spot, a kind of window remains through which we see almost nothing, for a white wall is certainly not nothing — you can walk straight into it.

creatingthevoid.nl