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Esther van der Wegen: A Life Full of Art


We had the chance to meet another very valuable artist. We learned about Esther van der Wegen and her art and life. Esther inspired us with the value she gives to art and the way she lives her life. The talented artist, who deals with many areas of art, defines herself as a storyteller. Esther, who can tell stories in many different ways, including poetry and performing arts, also thinks that art changes the world. More than being a content producer, she shares her artistic knowledge that she has gained over many years with the society and tells us stories. She inspired us with the answers she gave in our interview and shared many opinions about life and art.



Experienced and broad-minded, Esther made exciting statements on many different topics, from how an artist's interest in art can be discovered to other art areas she is influenced by. Here is the Esther van der Wegen interview that may inspire many of you:




Can you tell us a little about yourself? Who is Esther and what does she do?


My name is Esther, I am 60 years old and I am an artist based in The Hague, where I live for 32 years now. I was born and raised in Roosendaal, a small town near the Belgian border. I live together with my boyfriend and my cat in an old house with lots of art and things we found. It is our little museum. My studio is in our garden, which is beautiful, because I live together with a gardener who makes it into a small paradise. Next to being an artist, I am a teacher and I learn people Dutch. I studied Dutch culture in Rotterdam. I am an extravert introvert; I love connecting with people next to working alone in my studio.




When did your relationship with art begin?


That is a moment I remember quite clearly. I was 18 years old and with my fellow students we went to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. I saw the painting “Who is afraid of red, yellow and blue” from Barnett Newman. It was before the restauration, so the original version. I saw all the red strikes, the chaos, the directions, turned into one big red plane. It blew me away. I thought that I would disappear in the red color, it made me anxious, scared and excited at the same time.




What areas of art do you work in?


I am a storyteller and a drawing artist. And nowadays I am experimenting with performance art also. I love to tell stories with my drawings and paintings. I am a drawing artist more than a painter, I think. I want to express myself quite directly, I love my lines and I love to search while I am drawing. My intuition drives me instead of my thinking or a concept.


-I think you also have an educational role.


A few years ago, I finished my education to be an art teacher for children. It is really inspiring to work with children: they surprise themselves and me with the ideas they come up with and it helps me with new ideas as well.





Where are you originally from and what are the influences of the region where you live or were born on your art?


I am from a town near the Belgian border called Roosendaal. I always felt a bit like an outsider there and I think that aspect influences me even until today: what it means to be different and how people relate to one another in groups. But what also influenced me is the religion I grew up in, the Catholic church with its images and saints and especially Mary, mother of Christ, who was quite important to us. For me she stands for joy, care, womanhood and also the power of image. I think what most influenced my work is the power of family, and also the family as a force of nature which influences us whether we want it or not. I come from quite a close and warm vivid family. I was the youngest and there was always a lot of talking and eating and laughing.




What are the characteristics of the art you produce?


I think it has a wild, pure character; it is expressive, mostly colorful. It is storytelling in the form of drawing or performance and it has a searching, exploring form, like I am looking for the answer while making the work. Some people say it is dark and maybe it is, but I believe darkness and light both need to be shown, I want to search for the heart of the matter, but I am not sure if I find it. That process is what you see in my work.




We often see human figures in your works, what do you think is the connection between people and art?


There is a lot you can say about that. My work is about people and how they are related to themselves and to other people. How is life inside their head, inside their heart and how do they show that to one another? Can they share that with the world outside or with themselves? How are they influenced, consciously of subconsciously, by their family or their ancestors? Do you have a saying in that? Or is it a system you have to give in to? It fascinates me a lot. Another thought that comes up regarding this question is: are people the only creatures who can make art? I was thinking of the beautiful patterns in the sand of the desert, these waves, so harmonic and formed by the wind, I guess. I think the greatest artists are driven by the same sense of harmony and touched by the same force, given to them by intuition and good listening and watching the world around them and having the courage to follow up on it.





You also often include typographic materials, is there a concern for message in your work?


I use words and text often as a form, as an image, I am searching for a way to let them work together. I think that is because I am a poet and a writer too and because I just love to put them together in my work. I don’t think there is a special emergency to do that. Sometimes I use fragments of conversations I heard and combine them with drawings, sometimes I make a poem inspired by the story I am telling with the image and sometimes I just use an old image with a story or poem I have written. Like I said before, I am a storyteller and sometimes the work needs both text and image.




How do you use your own life in your art? Are you an observant person?


My work is always a reflection of my inner and outer world, I think. What triggers me, what withholds me from doing things, what am I anxious of? It is always research I am doing or I use an image that presents that. I am observing all the time, I am fond of colors, how they work together, colors and forms I see in nature but also in garbage on the streets. I am observant of people, how they look at me, how their voice sounds, how they look away when they talk. I hear and see everything. I think it has something to do with my anxiety, I am always alert. Next to the anxiety I am also interested and curious about how the world works, how we work. So, yes, I am quiet observant, it doesn’t really look like that, I am quite busy also, always talking and communicating. But meanwhile, I see things.




Were there any artists or movements that influenced you?


Oh, there are so many. I love purity, honesty and clarity in art. I don’t like a perfect image; I like it when it has a rough edge. That is not entirely true at the same time, because I love the Flemish primitives and that is close to perfect, I think. I simply love the work of Charlotte Salomon, because the way she tells her story, using typography and text and her drawings and colors are so beautiful. I love the wild images of Francis Bacon, the way he destroys a face with his strokes, the painting “Paralytic child on All fours” painted after a picture of Muybridge I can keep watching and watching in admiration. The horror of it and at the same time the beauty, the colors, the size. Absolutely brilliant. I am a great admirer of Marlene Dumas. She is somehow related to Bacon, because she is not afraid of showing the shadow of things and she uses pictures as inspiration as well. But she is a storyteller, more like Bacon I think and with her images she reflects her relation to the world around her. Rothko can bring me to tears with his colors. One of my favorite artists is Armando, I love the purity and clarity of his forms and the way he brings on the paint. He is also a storyteller, but not with many words, but with a straightforward form. I love the zero art of Jan Schoonhoven and I am always moved by the installations of Ana Mendieta and Louise Bourgeois. They are a big inspiration to me. Not only their message and their story but certainly also the way they brought it to form. Beautiful! And then there are, of course, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Van

Gogh, Bonnard, Matisse, Goya and Munch. The list is endless. And the last one I want bring to attention is Maira Kalman. She is also a great storyteller and artist and Illustrator; I love her drawings and her humor and her colors.




Can different areas such as cinema and music also inspire your art?


Absolutely. There are scenes in movies which have shaped me and made me look in a different way at things and ideas. And also, music concerts and songs can do that. It opens your mind; it triggers you and it brings you closer to the heart of being alive.


-Can you tell us your favorite movies or musicians?


My favorite movies are The Hours, Le fabuleux destain de Amelie Poulain, My beautiful launderette. Amelie is an ode to imagination and I love the colors and the beauty and the pure view. This movie always makes me very happy. The hours are of course made after the beautiful book of Michael Cunningham. So, I should name both here. I am very touched by the love the people feel for each other in the movie, but yet it is not enough. It is about the love and the inadequacy of it. It always makes me cry, especially the scene at the railway station with Virginia Woolf and her husband and her words: “You can’t find peace by avoiding life Leonard.” My beautiful launderette where I fell in love with Daniel Day Lewis who played a skinhead in a relationship with his Pakistan boyfriend. A movie about cultural conflicts, politics and society and love and how everything exists together at the same time. Pure brutal poetry this movie.


My favorite musicians are Nick Cave, Thom Yorke, Kate Bush, Joni Mitchell, Kendrick Lamar, Little Simms, PJ Harvey. They are poets, using their own voice in a way that moves me, inspires me. And also, in my country there are a lot of inspiring people like Spinvis, Wende, Roosbeef. They all have in common that they don’t compromise, they are honest and pure and they have the courage to let us hear their voice and their story.




Does being an artist require hard work or is it a matter of emotion?


You have to work hard to get to hear your own story and then work harder to hear how to bring it to an art work. It was one of my heroes Jacques Brel who put it like this: ”Talent doesn't exist. Talent is the desire to fulfil a dream. Everything else is sweat and discipline". And that is exactly how I see it.




What do you like to do in your daily life other than painting?


I like to wander outside without a particular goal, feel the sun on my face, visit a second-hand shop and find something I like. I like to eat great food, read good books, write a poem now and then, listen to music I love or to a podcast. Just love the good things of

life.




What is your least favorite type of art?


I am not a fan of photography as an art form. It is not that I don’t like it, it just doesn’t fascinate me that much.




What do you think about social media's perspective on artists? Could it be that we are consuming too fast?


I think social media gave us artists more possibility to show and share our art and ideas, but being on the consumers side it feels sometimes as too much, too many, too fast, so it is a dilemma. Do we have to stop sharing or find another way of sharing, do we have

to limit ourselves in responding or being active on social media? We are not real on social media I think, we are an image that looks like us and that makes a bit dangerous. Where is the real contact, we need to talk more, exchange more of ourselves. There should be more of a follow up after social media less media more real social contact? Or should we be alone more? And have a digital diet more?




Many new artists are concerned with producing content rather than artistic concerns. Do you think we will see geniuses like the old masters today?


It depends on how you look at it. Every genius is a genius in his own time and a reflection of his time. But what are the criteria for a genius in these days is what we should ask ourselves. Someone who really stands out in ideas, in form? Do we recognize a genius now, or do we have to wait some years from now? It had to be someone who makes us look at things in a new way, in a way we never did earlier, not an artist that only reflects our time, but who also transcends. I have the trust these people keep on being among us.




Are there any projects you would like to realize in the future?


I am now working on my project about the blue girls and I would like to make a theatre performing show around these creatures. I am interested in performing arts and I would like to do more research on that. Like my drawings and paintings, I like the search and the discovery. Also, I would like to make more spatial theatrical work, like making large dolls and installations with it.





Can you describe your art in one sentence?


I am a storyteller and an explorer of human nature and human relations and I use art to bring it to life in the form of expressive drawings, paintings. poetry and performance art.




Finally, can art change the world?


Of course it can. It did and it does change the world. It helps us to look from another perspective, it shakes us up, it makes us angry, it makes us laugh and cry, it makes us look clearer, it tells the truth even when it lies, art is in so many ways a catalyst to change. There are always artists who keep up the mirror to society. Let's have the courage to look into the mirror.

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