World Fine Art Professionals and their Key-Pieces, 316 - Kitty Doomernik

World Fine Art Professionals and their Key-Pieces, 316 – Kitty Doomernik
Kitty Doomernik’s atelier is located in Renkum, on the edge of the Veluwe. On the way in her car, on the way to Armslag Ateliers, I see the beautiful, gently rolling landscape. Her spaces are located at the back of a large building in which several studios are located.
In one large space is a permanent exhibition of the work of Henk van Rooij, Kitty’s husband, passed away in 2014. I see paintings, some vertically elongated, and ceramics, including a few beautiful gold and red horses. There are large earthenware dishes on the table.

The woman and the feminineHenk van Rooij,
Kitty Doomernik does live and work in Gelderland, but is originally from Brabant, from Den Bosch, where she fully experienced the rich Roman Catholic life, including at school with the nuns. From time to time this past is reflected in her work. You can put it more strongly: it is a major undercurrent in her creative work.
The work is about the woman and the feminine in the world. Kitty: “I can’t do without it. I write and make work based on being a woman. It comes from my own life. What I have encountered as a woman personally and in society. Through everything that has stuck and made an impression. Sometimes it was astonishing. ”

Collages
It started with poems she wrote. “At a certain point I started to imagine it. Drawing and painting, in a classical way, non-figurative and non-narrative. I practiced with paint and chalk to express things on paper and canvas. At a certain point it turned out that this was not enough. The craft requires a long learning process. I switched to making collages. ”

That was in the mid-1990s. She found her voice with those collages. “Once I got into that, I thought ‘This is it!’, this is my expression. Then it became more 3D because I discovered objects to place those pictures on. That started with zinc drawers. I found it in a shop where a plumber had been. From then on collages appeared on objects, only occasionally on paper. Those objects varied from drawers to old cigarette boxes, carpet sample books, baking molds, cute second-hand frames to preformed clamp bands and plastic packaging molds. ”

Combinations with a humorous twist
She can best express what she wants to say with collages. “I have an enormous archive of clippings, which is more or less sorted. I can draw from that. I do not cut everything out and do not use all magazines and magazines. Sometimes I come across ‘jewels’. In a shop in Bourges, France, I saw a stack of Paris Matches from the early 1960s. The Libelle and the Margriet are not interesting, the pictures are too ordinary and well-behaved. I’m looking for ‘bold pictures’. Then I get to work with combinations that yield something special, often with a humorous twist. ”
For example, she made ‘Les Fleurs du Mal’ in response to Baudelaire’s collection of poems. Kitty participated in many exhibitions, also in her early days, when she still made abstract work. In 2019 she participated in the Biennale Le Latitudini dell’arte, 4th edition, in the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa, with the theme ‘Water and Air’. The participating artists in the exhibition came from Italy and the Netherlands. See also the overview on her site.

Key work
Does she have a key work? She has. “My key work is ‘Once upon a time there was a Virgin’. I was completely satisfied with that work. In July it can be seen in the Pulchri Studio in The Hague with Virginia Monteverde from Genoa as curator. The exhibition will be opened by Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, Dutch author living in Genoa. ”
Kitty herself had a part in that. “During the period that I was there, in Genoa, I came across Pfeijffer in the center of the city. At first I did not dare to speak to him to point out the exhibition, but I took the plunge. He came to have a look. He’s even in a picture in front of my artwork. And now Virginia Monteverde has asked if he wanted to open the exhibition in The Hague. He was very friendly and agreed. ”

Mary statues and holy water
Her key work hung at the exhibition in Genoa. Seven plastic Mary statues (souvenirs from Czestochowa – Poland) with holy water are part of this. “Each statue stood on a clamp-on cover, used as a pedestal, on which collages and the Hail Mary in seven languages. I have had many reactions to it. One visitor was so indignant that she grabbed a statue and threw it on the floor. That is quite drastic! Ultimately, Mary is just a symbol, although clearly not for that lady. For me, Maria is also a reference to the woman. The woman as a mother, as a virgin, as a whore. It just depends on what meaning you give it. ”

When she was young Kitty went to a nun school in Den Bosch. “There was a strict atmosphere there. Naked was taboo. Something naked was directly related to sexuality. While that connection doesn’t have to be there, you also have to be able to laugh about it. My husband, Henk van Rooij, also had a lot of eroticism in his work, but he always did that with a joke. We were a team, we loved each other very much. I still miss him every day. It’s as if part of myself has fallen away. ”

Education
Kitty attended workshops in lithography, gum printing and screen printing. For this she went to the graphic workshop in Eindhoven. “I also attended the Graphic School in Eindhoven. I didn’t finish it completely. Graphics influenced me, you can tell a story with it.”
Started with collages in the mid-1990s, the result was shown in 1996 in Turnhout, Belgium, with her solo exhibition, the installation ‘Women’s Influence’. That was at ‘The Creative Factory’, an artists’ initiative with studios and an exhibition space. Later she exhibited there with colleagues from the WIT Visual Artists Association.
In her artistry, in addition to making works, art is also meeting other artists, promoting each other, organizing something somewhere. “I’ve also been doing it internationally since 2000. In France, Germany, in Bulgaria, in Lithuania. I enjoy these types of contacts.“ In addition, she gives lessons to students via Armslag Ateliers. In August Kitty is Artist in Residence in Norway, in Natthagen, Elverum.

Philosophy
Finally, what is her philosophy? Kitty: “My philosophy is of course about women, about the role of women. For me, the woman is not a victim if you consider it in a broad sense. The woman can be or become an individual victim. In that sense I am not a real feminist. If women ruled the world, it wouldn’t be great. However, something in men’s culture has to change. For example, you now see men taking a stroll with the pram, you hardly saw that in the past. They would be called ‘sissies’. Ultimately, it’s about reverence and respect for each other. That must be reflected in your personal life.
Images
1) Les baigneuses garrottés overview Les Jardins de Drulon, Fr, 2007, 2) Women’s influence overview De Muze Alden Biesen, B, 1999, 3) Women’s influence detail, 1999, 4) Idols, myths & magic overview, If 3 women are gods, Persingen, 2002, 5 – 6) Idols, myths & magic II ged. Overview, De Bewaerschole, Burgh Haamstede, 2003, 7) Once upon a time there was a virgin, overview Kunstfestival Magdeburg Dld, 2004, 8) Full of grace, part of Once upon a time there was a virgin, 2004, 9) Lesson fleurs du mal det. 1, 2009, 10) 2020 portrait Kitty Doomernik, copyright Harrie Eijkemans

 

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