tineke van veen  visual artist   /   info   /   biography   /   » 

index of works

contact

about the work (text by els fiers)

Vulnerability. For Tineke van Veen this is a keyword. Her work is always balanced on the boundary between harm and preservation, safety or disaster, aggression or consolation.

Whichever topic is broached, you feel that the artist plays with the idea of going that one step further, where disaster strikes, equilibrium breaks, the person drowns. While viewing Tineke’s work there were two images which I returned to look at again and again. ‘Eyes’ and ‘Beware of the Undertow’, respectively from 2000 and 2003.

Eyes is part of a large photoprint of a girl’s face in front of which is a tear of blown glass. The girl, whom I think is about 5 years old, looks at you with a gaze of both suspicion and trust. I know of only two kinds of people who can give that look: children and those who have kept their children’s soul (artists sometimes but certainly not always). Because Eyes approaches you in a very direct manner – who can resist the penetrating gaze of a child? – I find it characteristic of the work of Tineke van Veen. The request to participate, rather than to remain neutral on the sidelines, comes back in her whole oeuvre. There is always more than you think at first sight and you as the viewer must take a position. In Eyes the frequently returning glass tear hangs between the girl’s eye and her nose. Evidently the work expresses grief, but the expression and the sharp gaze of the child gets the upper hand. That striving for balance – a process that first takes place in the mind of the artist and then in that of the viewer – I find interesting.

Tineke’s work invites you to think with her. But we find ourselves in the area of the psyche: memories, childhood, threat, love and grief, sensitive issues that may be confrontational. When you as an artist choose such topics it is necessary to find a good balance. Take, for instance Beware of the Undertow . In this work two beautiful glass feet stand on a glass plate. The plate sits firmly in a small zinc bath and suggests a surface of water or ice. Out of the feet grow elegant, delicate twigs. Beware of the Undertow expresses growth and transformation. To the latter it reminds me of the marble sculpture Apollo and Daphne made by Bernini. Apollo chases the beautiful nymph Daphne with the intention of raping her. But the moment he gets hold of her, she changes into a bay tree. As if without effort, Bernini chiselled twigs and leaves in the hair and on the defending hands of the very young Daphne. The combination of sculpture and transformation, I find absolutely fascinating. (A sculpture is transformation: an artist creates something out of raw material). But the mysterious change speaks perhaps more to the imagination. Was Daphne better off as a bay tree than as the victim of Apollo? I don’t dare to give an answer. Why does Tineke let twigs grow out of the glass feet? I don’t know, but the weighing of growth against the threat of the deep, dangerous water, I find a poetic thought. Perhaps we all find ourselves on this boundary: between falling and standing, light and dark, hope and fear.

Fearful Hideaway , a structure with glass and a stuffed crow creates a similar tension. Eleven black glass drops balance on the ground, around a frame in the form of a little house on top of which sits a crow with a gaping beak. Whoever views it all sees a tense relation between the objects and a symbolism as seen with the painters from the Renaissance or the Baroque period. The little house, symbol of protection, is open on all its sides and offers no security whatsoever, even though the frame is made of steel. The crow symbolises evil, the number eleven unity and glass symbolises fragility. That all parts are black creates a pronounced, graphic but also threatening image. Fearful Hideaway with the house as focal point, is about the inability to protect. Even at a shrine evil can swoop but in the bright reflection from the glass tears, I find yet a sort of musicality which lightens the threat.

Tineke builds on the idea of protection in Reflect and Protect a wide intervention in and around the castle Slot Loevestein in Gorinchem (2010). A narrow corridor in the knights-tower is covered with rescue blankets, such as you find at accident- or crime scenes. Tineke used the foil as a reflective and enveloping material for the tunnel and particularly gold coloured outer surface as a covering for the canons which since the 17th century were intended to keep the enemy out. In their golden mantle the canons lose their aggressive character and degenerate into unusable objects, absolutely unsuitable for their intended purpose. In the gunpowder storage room of the medieval castle Tineke made a structure with glass and neon.The words ‘save’ and ‘safe’ are woven together and the philosophical ‘Why’ hangs in mirror writing opposite a highly reflective, black glass ellipse. All the contributions in the castle create an atmosphere of contemplation. Objects and spaces that previously seemed obvious, receive by an injection from Tineke a poetic and a laden character. Why: I think it is a good question. Because the answer could be endlessly varied or just very short. For the power of people, their weaknesses, for their way of doing things, for the failures, for the success, for the journey.