World Fine Art Professionals and their Key-Pieces, 497 - Kitty Doomernik Revisited

World Fine Art Professionals and their Key-Pieces, 497 – Kitty Doomernik Revisited
Kitty Doomernik has had some turbulent years. Not only did she leave her studio in Renkum and eventually come to live in nearby Heelsum – where she now makes her work at home, a number of loved ones also passed away, including both her brothers.
She picks me up with her car at the Ede-Wageningen station – completely renovated – and we drive to the De Beken Visitors Centre in Het Renkums Beekdal (The Stream Valley of Renkum) , where a year ago the visitors of the funeral of brother Harry – whom I also knew – gathered.

She talks about her family in Den Bosch. Her father who played in bands and orchestras and who started in the classical orchestra of Boxtel. That she studied piano for years with her own teacher. And acted at Rederijkerskamer Moyses Bosch’ and in the Kersouwe Heeswijk. And how she became an artist. “That is mainly thanks to artist Henk van Rooij, my late husband.” She shared the studio in Renkum with him.
She has quite a lot of contacts in the art world, both nationally and internationally. She is also the curator of Breed Art Studios in Amsterdam. I recently saw the exhibition ‘Breed Art Studios 10’ organized on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Breed Art. She exhibited her recent work there, together with the work of Florence Husen and Bert Hoekstra.
In her new home in Heelsum – a beautiful house surrounded by lots of greenery – she talks about her exhibitions in Sofia, her stay as AIR (artist in residence) at Kunstcentrum Natthagen Norway, her exhibition in the Jura in France and the current focus of her work.

Sofia
She was in Sofia for the first time in 2019 to exhibit at Lessedra Art Gallery, she says. A friend had organized an exchange with this gallery. The gallery organized the Miniprint Annual every June and the Painting & Mixed Media Competition every December. She was able to use the apartment above the gallery for her stay. She really liked it. Since then, she has participated in the gallery’s exhibitions every year.
“You can register from all over the world. That is what happens: artists come from countries like Poland, Mexico, Japan. Sometimes there is an extra emphasis on a certain country or a certain painting/drawing school. The owner is art collector and art lover Georgi Kolev. In his birthplace Lessedren he is busy building an art center. In addition to a space where his art collection will be permanently displayed, there will be four residency possibilities. It still has to be finished.”

Natthagen
In Sofia in 2019 she met Trond E. and his husband Robert, who had a gallery and a cultural history museum with a café in Hernes Norway: called Natthagen. “That means garden at night. They told me that they were planning to start a residency opportunity for artists on their property. I registered with them as an interested party.” The following year she received a message that she had been accepted. She packed the car and drove to Norway. It was corona time.

“I got tested three times. Because I wasn’t vaccinated. Each time the results were negative. Still, I was sent back by customs. I didn’t go to Natthagen in 2020. I drove back through Germany and went to work for three weeks with my brother Danny who lived in Northern Germany.”
In 2022 she went back. “I worked on my Nick Cave project for a month (also on display at the recent Breed Art Gallery exhibition).” The following year, 2023, she went back to Natthagen, now together with her fellow townsman from Renkum, artist Bert Hoekstra. Natthagen had started an Earth Art Path. Kitty went to work in the garden on her project The Other Path. “I got stones from everywhere, a total of about 1000 kilograms of stones. I took them from the area and placed them at a location near a rock formation that dates back to the Ice Age. You are not allowed to change anything about the rock formation itself. It is said to have been an ancient sacrificial site. I made an “other” path with those stones, because there is never just one possible path to walk.”
Nature is doing its job there, because moss is growing very quickly, also on my new path. I will see next year, because in June 2025 I will go there again, together with Bert Hoekstra.”

Marangea, municipality of Sarrogna in the so-called Petite Montagne
She used to go to Les Jardins de Drulon in France, but since the owner had a fatal heart attack in Australia, that has been closed. Now she goes to Atelier Les Niocraux in Marangea, municipality of Sarrogna in the so-called Petite Montagne in the French Jura. The owners are Kees de Voogd and his wife Ria. “Kees is a Dutch artist who we – Henk van Rooij and I – already knew in the Netherlands. Theo van Keulen drew our attention to him in 2000. In France he is now a member of an artist club, Zig Zag. They organize a different studio route every two years. Kees invited me to do that this year.”
In the past, another artists’ club was active: Les Doigts d’Art. They organised a sculpture route every year in a different city or village in the Jura. Henk and I participated in that twice. We also gave workshops at Les Niocraux. We stayed in their holiday home.”

Focus of the work
The focus of her work has not changed that much, she says. “The image of women has become less central. But I am and will remain a woman, I look at society and human behavior as a woman. I mainly make collage art, which can also be seen at the exhibition at Breed Art.”

Through an open call from the organization NoWeapon.world, she submitted a design for a poster that would be displayed on billboards in Venice during the last weeks of the Biennale. Her work was selected, along with 29 others. Emergency is a foundation for medical aid to war victims. This foundation made their location in Venice available, where the official opening will take place and where all the posters will also be exhibited. “It is a work that shows tanks and a raised middle finger. In this way I try to draw attention to things that I think are wrong. Hopefully it will result in change – in whatever form.”
Behind me hangs a small collage work behind glass in which Honecker and Brezhnev kiss each other amidst floating pistols. “We were at a bookstore in Detmold, Germany, and saw that poster. I could just take it with me. I made a collage on paper at home, from which I then made digital prints. Three of each collage. With the work I try to make a smile appear on the face of the viewer, despite the misery.”

Bringing artists into contact with each other
Kitty Doomernik considers bringing artists into contact with other artists as part of her job. She recently became a member of the Platform of Professional Artists in Wageningen and is now its secretary. In Wageningen, there is an annual exhibition in the Grote Kerk with the title Art in the Church featuring work by members of the platform.
There is also a collaboration project with WUR, Wageningen University, this year, under the title Art meets Science. In November there will be an exhibition in the Visum Mundi space. There will be work by Bert Hoekstra, but not yet by Kitty. That will be the case when she can show her installation work in Campus Wageningen next year. “With a door frame that is perpendicular to the wall. With a kite curtain of tampons hung in it, on which the image of a vagina has been sprayed with reddish paint. The text next to it reads: ‘people, you can relive your birth’. ‘Menstruation and Sexuality’ is part of the entire collaboration project with WUR. The intention of this part is to break clichés.”

Images
1)The other path 3, 2) Artificial nature, The great reset, back to the future. From left to right: 3x Artificial Nature, 3x The great reset, 3x Back to the future, 3) Nick Cave Project 1, 4) Nick Cave Project 2, 5) Nick Cave Project 3, 6) Nick Cave Project 5, 7) Nick Cave Project 6, 8) Plan of the human mind, 9) The other path 1, 10) portrait Kitty Doomernik, photo Harrie Eijkemans

 

https://www.kittydoomernik.com/
https://www.lessedra.com/gallery.php?d=current
https://natthagen.no/air-kunstnerresidens/
https://breedartstudios.net/amsterdam-art-exhibitions-2024/
https://www.instagram.com/noweapon.world/
https://inzaken.eu/2024/11/07/kitty-doomernik-het-in-contact-brengen-van-kunstenaars-met-andere-kunstenaars-beschouw-ik-als-deel-van-mijn-werk/