World Fine Art Professionals and their Key-Pieces, 278 - Inge van Haastert

 

World Fine Art Professionals and their Key-Pieces, 278 – Inge van Haastert
On a warm August afternoon I visit Inge van Haastert in her studio in a studio complex in Schiedam South. Two fans are on, it’s that hot. Her work hangs on the walls: cut tubes with round holes with a lot of depth in them and a painting with more square-round shapes with even larger holes in it, reminiscent of the sculptures of Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth.
I had seen her work in the WTC Art Gallery in Rotterdam, an exhibition that also included works by Astrid de Pauw and Pien van der Beek, and I was impressed then. In terms of mobility it resembles the art of Matisse.

A separate way of looking
Her paintings are about seeing, says Inge van Haastert. “About seeing as such. I have an eye problem. With my right eye I see everything, even far away, with my left only close by. The eyes do not synchronize, each eye has its own system. This is how I developed a separate way of looking from an early age. I started using it as a theme. A personal expression of my way of seeing. I don’t see any space, but I still experience it, and you can see that space, that depth, with a lot of vistas. ”

Party garland
The work ‘Feestslinger’ (Party garland) from 2008 is a key work. She points to it: a party garland with the colors green, yellow and purple. “I had bought a garland as a flat package from the party shop. The package fell open and I saw that something flat can become spatial. That was a great experience: ‘I can paint spatially!’. It was like real, a little bit ‘over the top’. I then continued, preferably combining convex shapes with flat things.”

The tap was turned on. She points to another ‘party garland’ she started on six years ago, a horizontal one in yellow, green, blue and orange. She has worked on it a number of times, each time with the idea that it was not finished, but now, recently it has really been finished.

Tom Puss art
Another key piece hangs in front of me to the right: ‘Retro-stel’ (Retro couple). Again there are the hole patterns, but the shapes are more spherical / square, in this case three spheres on the left and three on the right, with depth and background. Inge: “It’s a crazy shape, it reminded me of the 1950s. When comics and cartoons at the ‘Flintstones’ and in the ‘Tom Poes’ (Tom Puss) stories showed modern art, you saw sculptures like this with large holes. It looks a bit like the sculpture works of Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. I thought it was very funny and made my own translation of it. ‘Retro couple’ is the first in another series.” There were also smaller ‘nieces and nephews’, often enlarged with details that can be seen on the wall behind me.

Corona time
The Corona period played a positive role in this. “Corona has focused me on the present. That turned out very well. I did a lot of work, even more than usual. The Stedelijk Museum Schiedam came up with the idea of asking local artists for a corona-related work. Posters were made of this that now hang in the city. The original works and posters were then exhibited in the Museum under the title ‘Troostkunst’ (Consolation art). I also participated in that. All artists received a symbolic amount of money for this. I thought that was such a good project. The Museum showed and paid for the artists’ work. It can still be seen until October 4. ”

Royal Prize
Inge van Haastert graduated in 1977 from the Academy of Visual Arts in Rotterdam, now Willem de Kooning Academy. In 1979 she received the Royal Prize (the Royal Subsidy) in the Royal Palace on Dam Square from Queen Juliana. “That has helped. My work came to the attention of galleries. It got off to a good start. Later I joined the BKR, the Visual Artists Scheme, I was happy with that too. This allowed me to develop and experiment carefree. I was free in what I made. A little later I got side jobs in art, as a consultant. At the CBK (Center for Visual Arts) Rotterdam, Stroom Den Haag, in Almere, in Amsterdam. You see an insane amount of artists that you often had never heard of. You also learn from work and from colleagues. In 2006 it stopped. The art money and the commission jobs. ”

The Nieuwe Waterweg
She then took on other side jobs besides being an artist. “In home care, administration, ‘organizing’. For example, I was helping a woman in home care in the morning, working at the CBK in the afternoon and then at the end of the day the gas technician came by and I had lost all the money I had earned. When I was 62, I had my best side job, at the administration department of a metal recycling company in Pernis with a view of the Nieuwe Waterweg. Fantastic. Now I am happy with the AOW (general old-age scheme), which makes life more carefree again. ”

Exhibitions
Work by Inge van Haastert will be shown in a few exhibitions: At the KunstWerkt foundation in Schiedam (August 15 – August 30) and from September 6 – October 18 in Galerie Wijnstraat in Dordrecht (together with Marijke Verhoef and Eddy Stikkelorum).

Images
1) Inge van Haastert, 2) party garland, 2012, 3) party garland 2020, in studio, 4) half open tube, 2020, 5) open tubes, 2019, 6) Passages, 2020, 7) Passages in landscape, 2019, 8) Retro duo, 2020, 9) Retro couple, 2017, 10), Volumes, 2019

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