Rozemarijn Westerink

Rozemarijn Westerink
Dreams in Line

Article featured on Drawing Pöx, blog on contemporary drawing

Rozemarijn Westerink draws in black, refusing distractions of color and erasure. A single ink line, then another, then the next until she fills the paper. She builds her drawings slowly. Adds a layer, then another, adds a memory, adds a sound.

“What makes you want your drawings move?” I asked.

Rozemarijn: “My stop-motion films come directly from the drawings I create. Drawing is for me the most honest form of making art. It’s as intimate as it is raw. Observations, memories and dreams I transform into pen drawings, sometimes so intense that the white paper almost disappears.

I only draw with pen and ink; Indian ink is a material which is irreversible and has only one color: black. I very much like the restrictions this material brings with it; they make the rules I created for myself: I don’t have to think about which colors to use, I don’t have to rethink my material. Within these rules I can do whatever I want.

In 2006 I started making animation films. I always dreamt of it earlier, but it really took off out of practical reasons. I went to Japan for a residency and couldn’t bring many materials with me. I decided to put my drawings together into moving image and my first stop-motion films were born and shown in Tokyo.

After this I won the Buning Brongers Prize for drawing and painting, which was surprisingly nice because I had submitted moving image, a video work.

Since 2015 I decided to restrict myself regarding the subject of my work as well; in my drawings I now focus on drawing the landscape – particularly the garden – and, more recent, the female body. Through this, I explore how a personal experience or the sensation of a specific moment can become universal and recognizable to the viewer.

To take this a step further, I would like the viewer to really step into my world by creating film. How does it feel to be captured by a hand-drawn image in motion, while hearing sound at the same time? Can I come closer to the viewer this way? Can we interact by sharing a same association provoked by a drawing? Film also gives us the possibility to experience the perception of time, this is an interesting aspect for me to play with as well.

I create my films using stop-motion, capturing each frame individually. For example, over 10.000 photographs construct Rêves en Ligne, a film I made for the Zadkine Museum in Paris, with a duration of 10:30 minutes. By employing this technique, I choose a slow and simple way to produce moving images, staying as close as possible to the act of drawing. I build my film settings layer by layer, much like I create a drawing, erasing nothing. This approach allows viewers to follow the drawing process closely.

The films’ soundtracks I create by using primarily analogue equipment, like a 4-track recorder. As it stays as close to the drawing and filming process as possible, bringing the drawn worlds to life.

From these films I develop a more spatial form of drawing, in which I like to incorporate elements from my animations into new works. Therefore, I preserve the drawn paper figures that are featured in my films, in cast resin or ceramics. As these works capture a moment frozen in time, allowing the viewer to observe them from different angles.”

Drawing Pöx

BIO

Rozemarijn Westerink (1982, The Netherlands)
Drawings and animation film

"The body and the garden share the ability to visualise a desire for a natural inner space, which remains both physical and fluid."

Rozemarijn Westerink studied at ArtEZ in Arnhem (BA) and St. Joost in Den Bosch (MA). She won the Buning Brongers Prize in 2006 and in 2023 the Open Call Zadkine, initiated by the Dutch Embassy and the Zadkine Museum in Paris.

Westerink creates drawings with pen and ink, building them up layer by layer, much like the way she makes stop-motion animated films, bringing the drawn worlds to life. From these films, she develops spatial, ceramic figures and works in cast resin.
In her work, she focuses on the landscape - particularly the garden - and the female body. Westerink considers both the body and the garden as metaphors for an inner space that is tangible, fluid, and transient.

For the municipality of Amersfoort, she created a mural in a bicycle tunnel and designed a sound barrier above it. Recently, she made an animated film for the Zadkine Museum in Paris, as a contemporary reflection on the iconic sculpture 'The Destroyed City' by Ossip Zadkine. This film has been shown in Paris and the Chabot Museum in Rotterdam.

- From publication on the occasion of Slow Down Motion, duo-show at Art Gallery O-68 (Velp, NL) by Rozemarijn Westerink and Lenneke van der Goot - January 26 / February 23, 2025