Rozemarijn Westerink

Rozemarijn Westerink
Munthe Copenhagen (DK) - Art Monday Stories

Article featured on Munthe Art Monday

Please introduce yourself and tell us about what you do.
I’m a visual artist based in The Netherlands. A few years back, I moved from the city Utrecht to a small village next to the woods and the river Rhine. After my graduation at MFA at St. Joost School of Art [&] Design, I work on drawings on paper and hand-made animation films with analogue equipment. In my work, I focus on landscape and the female body. Recently I started exploring a more spatial way of working with ceramics and resin. All my work starts from drawing, as drawing is for me the most honest form of making art. It’s as intimate as it is raw.

Could you explain more about how being a woman has affected your career?
During the last 10 years I completely focus on the landscape in my work – the garden in particular. The garden because it feels so close and it always surrounds you; the garden of my childhood, the garden I’m having at

my house right now, the gardens I see around me, and even the history of gardens is a long and interesting road, also the one in art history. This intimate space let’s say, has an intriguing similarity with thehuman body. As a woman my body is always close - well-functioning or not, satisfying or not – it’s constantly there, adapting to life and it’s changing circumstances. Just like a garden it’s near you all the time. A few years back I felt the need to insert the female body into my drawn landscapes. As the gardens I draw with pen and ink are extremely layered - sometimes so dense the white paper nearly disappears – the female bodies are drawn in mostly single lines, raw and direct. I consider both the body and the garden as metaphors for an inner space that is tangible, fluid and transient.

Can you name some other female (artist) that inspires you and explain why they do so?
The etchings of Louise Bourgeois for their direct way of drawing a line which totally falls together with the expression and content of the work. A perfect combination of vulnerability and strength.
Jenny Holzer for her textual works in public space which are always confronting in exactly the right way and saying everything with nothing.

The graphic works and paintings by Frida Kahlo, for their emotional and narrative value, only saying what is needed, nothing extra or too much. For the existential need of creating image and putting all aspects of life together. The drawings of Kinke Kooi, for their extreme preciseness and embracing softness and intimacy.

What has been the most challenging aspect of being a woman in the arts?
As a mother of three it can be a challenge to keep all things in the air and to find balance within all these different aspects of life. Especially for artists because the job never ends at five and to have children neither. For me it is to embrace life to the full.

What would you like people to notice in your artwork?
I would like people to experience my work as walking into a dream; to be at ease and regognize something familiar, but being a little confused at the same time… I think to have interaction with the other and share a universal moment by seeing a drawing, or have a communal perception of time by a film, is something very vulnarable and beautiful.

Munthe Art Monday

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