With financial support of the Mondriaan Fund.
Reizen door het glazen hart
‘reizen door het glazen hart’ is het resultaat van twee werkperiodes in 2017 als Artist in Residence bij Kaus Australis in Rotterdam. De reis en de transitietijd in de Intercity Direct tussen Amsterdam en Rotterdam waren aanleiding voor een serie vierkante collages in blauw. Tijdens de treinreis heeft van Ooy allerlei observaties gedaan en opgetekend. Zoals het fenomeen dat het verkeer op de snelweg vanuit de voorbijrazende trein achteruit in plaats van vooruit lijkt te bewegen. Die betrekkelijkheid van snelheid is in de collages gethematiseerd door fragmenten met verschillende dynamiek pal naast elkaar te plaatsen om zo de gesuggereerde beweging kracht bij te zetten of juist af te zwakken.
De eerste serie vierkante collages op paneel is te zien geweest bij de expositie Time Space & Architecture in Amsterdam, georganiseerd door Cityscapes Gallery.
Het vervolg op de ‘blauw-vierkante serie’ is de site-specific installatie bij Kaus Australis. Daar heeft van Ooy een grote tape-tekening gemaakt die ze gecombineerd heeft met ruimtelijk werk en met videobeelden vanuit de Intercity Direct.
verslag werkperiode bij Kaus Australis
‘Everything happens by chance and by necessity’
Democritus 460 – 356 BC
Semna van Ooy is triggered by movement, real and seemingly, sequences and stills, in film, photography and works of art. The installations and drawings of van Ooy arise from clashes, hitches and sheer chance during the making. It is a matter of acting, looking and reacting. She’s using the technique of collage and is in search of the accidental find as bycatch, by creating the optimal conditions that allow it to happen. What she is aiming at with her work is the tension between devised construction and chance. During the making it is all about questions as: how much space you give to chance, when and how do you intervene. Mistakes, correction and even failure are part of the game. From failure arise new combinations and unexpected connections.
Fragment of the opening speech by curator Piet de Jonge
….. A similar attitude did I encounter in the talks with Semna van Ooy. Born in 1961 in Amsterdam where she still lives and works. In her work she is also adding layers, creating new images. She got inspired by the Dutch landscape while travelling between Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Sitting in the train and seeing the landscape and all manmade structures moving. Objects close by, moving much faster than those in the background, thus creating layers or strands of images, glitsches that are hard to grasp. But Semna succeeds in depicting the experience of riding a train. In her studio she used the full length of one wall (15 m) to convey a fragment of such a high speed travel experience. On the opposite studio wall you will find smaller fragments. Decomposed parts, cut up and reassembled. The videos show the visual impact and changes within minutes.
In the corridor you will find one of her wall sculptures. She has deconstructed a traditional bentwood chair and analyzed its shapes. She then translates parts into painted pieces and layers thus creating a whole new thing, a world of its own.
In fact they reminded me of the decomposing sounds of William Bazinski’s Disintegration Loops.
wikipedia the Disintegration Loops