World Fine Art Professionals and their Key-Pieces, 293 - Rianne Heijmans

World Fine Art Professionals and their Key-Pieces, 293 – Rianne Heijmans
Together with Kurdestan Kamalizadeh, Rianne Heijmans made an original find in terms of presentation: they created their own virtual museum. In Beeld in het Kwadraat (Squared Image), you can wander in the museum spaces on a carpet of grass, while you see the drawings, paintings and photographs on the walls.

The drawings and photos have a certain relationship to each other. Just like in a real museum, the exhibition disappears after a few months and is then followed by a new exhibition. The first exhibition ‘Little Boy’ was to be seen in 2017. The old works can still be seen in the archive.

The bow tie by René Daniëls
I speak to Rianne and Kurdestan in the Utrecht café-restaurant Het Gegeven Paard. It is pleasantly busy. The virtual museum started out from the need to remove drawings from under bed, to make them visible, says Rianne. “It was a way to inspire each other and keep the creative process going. And also to keep each other on our toes. ”

They have been passionate about it. The virtual museum has been developed in an ongoing conversation with artist and website builder Emile Zeldenrust. Rianne: “It has been a year-long process. The first impetus for the virtual museum was ‘the bow tie of artist René Daniëls’.”
Daniels turned a bow tie into a space. That was original and surprising and inspired Emile and Rianne & Kurdestan to think about it. The possibilities are great. Rianne: “You can have other artists exhibit in a few rooms that are to be newly made behind. But you can also create a blog with it. ”

Pleasure in drawing
Rianne’s drawings are often made with oil chalk. But she also uses (color) pencil, markers, pastels and charcoal. The creative process is important to her. Initially, friction and ominous matters were central to the work. In ‘Nooit meer slapen’ (Never Sleep Again), she drew a reclining woman being pushed by her husband like a wheelbarrow and friction situations that were a little further away, for example the Dachau camp and the Wall* in Israel.

But the Wall in Israel, instead of being terrifying, became a fairy-tale drawing. She wanted a different focus. Rianne: “After graduating I looked further, but not so much anymore in the content. I wanted to regain the joy of drawing. For example, the starting point can be an inspiring photo. Then I go wild in drawing. That’s the best part: you are busy for a long time and you are surprised by what appears. You do have to choose in advance how you work. Do you opt for thick lines? Do you use chalk, oil paint or mixed technique with pencil? Ultimately, you will get content back, but then as the end result. You shouldn’t put all kinds of things in it too consciously, then it will get clumsy.” The lines don’t have to be perfect, as long as they speak.

The transition period lasted a few years. Rianne: “I worked for a knowledge institute for war victims for a long time. A heavy subject, which I also brought to my artistic work. I wanted to get away from that. For a few years I drew on photos. Three years ago I found a new way of working; a new way of handling material. I can discover so much with the materials I use. Initially I used oil crayons, as well as pencil and charcoal. I had received a box of oil crayon as a gift, that is where it started. It is not a very good material, but it has expressive power. You can also make more layers with it and you can draw in those layers. ”

Key work
Can she indicate a key work? She can, she has one from the first period: the work she was talking about ‘Never Sleep Again’. A reclining woman held at her feet like a wheelbarrow. She is being pushed by a man. “I wanted that image as a diagonal with a tree with blossom in the background. The image, in oil chalk, was based on an own photo. The message of the work: how autonomous are you?”
Another key work is ‘Hide and Seek’, which can also be seen in the Squared Image exhibition ‘Little boy’. It was a first step to work not only with oil chalk, but also with charcoal. “Initially, I thought charcoal was more of an option for making studies for etching.” It was also during this period that ‘Never ending leap’ was created, just like Hide and Seek, a work based on a photo of Kurdestan. “Initially the work had no title. I only saw the theme when it was finished: take a leap and make sure you don’t turn around again, keep going! ”

New Academy
Rianne Heijmans completed her art education at the New Academy in Utrecht in 2004. “It is a five-year academy. Guidance is provided by professional visual artists with an active career but also with experience in teaching. It has been around for over 25 years. You learn to work on an oeuvre over five years. ‘What do you want to say with your work?’, that is talked about. You learn to focus, to move away from non-commitment. The first two years you have lessons, the third year you can get started with your own work, in that year I started with oil chalk.”
Rianne has exhibited a few times, also with fellow artists, and now she exhibits permanently with Kurdistan in their own virtual museum. From that virtual museum comes a physical exhibition in Belgium. That was in preparation when I spoke to Rianne.
Finally, when asked about her philosophy, she says, “Die Welt mit neuen Augen lieben” (To love the world with new eyes). Rianne: “The closer you look, the more you see, the more you will love it / the more you appreciate it. These can be very small things. The sentence is also on our Squared Image (Beeld in het Kwadraat) site, linked to a call to inform us from whom this statement comes. It may be from Paul Klee, but we are not sure. If you know, let us know. ”

The wall
* The Israeli West Bank Barrier or Israeli Wall is a structure planned by Israel in 2002 and largely built in 2015 of nearly 10 meters high concrete walls, towers and checkpoints, roads, fences, barbed wire and ditches, approximately 620-760 km long within the green line (the 1949 armistice border with Jordan) on the West Bank in Palestine, sometimes straight through Palestinian villages and communities and deeper into Palestinian land.
Images
1) The Wall, 169 x 124 cm, 2) He who invented consciousness would have a lot to be blamed for Fitzgerald, 3) I wish I knew you better, 4) Landscape, 169 x 125 cm, 5) Neverending leap, 6) Never Sleep Again, 7) P1130004, 8) P8050014, 640 x 480, 9) Rianne Heijmans, 10) Why disappear

http://www.beeldinhetkwadraat.nl/
http://heijmansenkamalizadeh.nl/over-rianne/
https://rianneheijmans.exto.nl/
https://ifthenisnow.eu/nl/verhalen/de-wereld-van-de-utrechtse-kunstenaar-10-rianne-heijmans