Catharina van Eetvelde, September 21 (detail), 2021, textiles and yarns, 90 x85 x 5 cm
Catharina van Eetvelde
October 13 – December 8, 2021
In the work and life of Catharina van Eetvelde (b. 1967, Ghent), drawing is a continual process and a way to maintain a constant engagement with her surroundings. By examining spatial, temporal and technical boundaries, the artist approaches drawing as an ongoing activity rather than a medium. She mixes different techniques including works on paper, collages, assemblages, animated vectorial films, songs and embroideries in a complex and balanced choreography of materials, lines and words . For her, drawing means cultivating a delicate perception of the world and a humble attitude towards time and space.
A few month before the pandemic, Catharina van Eetvelde moved from Paris to the Rhine Delta. This move entailed a new kind of daily practice and a reconsideration of the ways in which the artist acquires knowledge from the world around her.
A few month before the pandemic, Catharina van Eetvelde moved from Paris to the Rhine Delta. This move entailed a new kind of daily practice and a reconsideration of the ways in which the artist acquires knowledge from the world around her.
Catharina van Eetvelde, July 14 (detail), 2021, oil and wax on paper, 114 x 78 cm
” Channelling colour, I let it breath and produce its own shape. There is something so absolute and transient about colour. Each colour seems to belong to a different material, to a specific time and embodies a different kind of light. Each olive is a different green. As I see it, colours bypass naming and their relative arrangement transfers tangible emotions. The more I look at a colour, the more it unfolds and multiplies – I see a million kinds of whites, pinks and blues…
The colours and fabrics that compose these works wither and change, they are at once impermanent and whole. Like a membrane, they relate to the world in a porous manner, their vulnerability also protects them.”
The colours and fabrics that compose these works wither and change, they are at once impermanent and whole. Like a membrane, they relate to the world in a porous manner, their vulnerability also protects them.”
⏤ Catharina van Eetvelde
Rhine Delta view, Catharina van Eetvelde
Catharina van Eetvelde, I prefer not to, 2016. A film by Jean Baptiste Décavèle
WOO, 2019-ungoing, drawing supported by voice and air, a song of small gesture, app. 15 min. Performed by Claron McFadden and Catharina van Eetvelde at the Kunstenfestival Watou 2021, curated by Chantal Pattyn and Benedicte Goesaert. A film by Matthijs van Cruijsen
harvest of flax
Catharina van Eetvelde at work as a member of The Linen Stewards, Hemmen, NL, photograph by Rob Velker
Catharina van Eetvelde at work as a member of The Linen Stewards, Hemmen, NL, photograph by Rob Velker
Catharina van Eetvelde, September 1 (detail), 2021, linen, flax, textiles and yarns, 90 x 60 x 5 cm
Catharina van Eetvelde at work
Catharina van Eetvelde, Garden, 2019, linen and yarn, 217 x 151 cm
Rhine Delta view, Catharina van Eetvelde
Catharina van Eetvelde, For A Room (detail), 2021, installation view Watou (Belgium)
Catharina van Eetvelde, For A Room, 2021, installation view, Kunstenfestival Watou (Belgium)
For me, drawing is a disposition that echoes parataxis in its relation to juxtaposition.”
⏤ Catharina van Eetvelde
Catharina van Eetvelde in the flax field
Mostly, silent. Colour of one
of many fields the greenof sap, fibre, fern
then leaves and wide with life.
Open. White as the film which lies within
the egg-shell, then yellow thin and viscid
bells of orange, air and skin.
Like sun, like mountain, stone
moist now, clear and running blue:
we vast as purple still
and earthly crystal joy
Between dog and wolf a dragonfly at an angle, two, two sets of wings one set up flying the other swimming just above a river’s skin.
And each of all a colour body embedded so exactly, so specific: here with me and then as paths of light unfolding.
And darks not long in shades but deep, where life is lived a change of scale enormous in its quantities.
Then high, horizontal, flat upland still with wind in banners human made and filled with care to level with the sounds of flies, of leaves, cattle, grasses. Passages of thousands of years of kinship being, life with life on top of life. Delicate of ageing, withered, passed along, knowledges of courages made gentle.
Older than a city, the thread I hold a trillion times carried before me,
one hand outstretched arms open one hand remembers the other is not yet, the body knows. Protected, capable of being felt.
I relate of that affection.
Catharina van Eetvelde, July – September 2021