World Fine Art Professionals and their Key-Pieces, 217 - Jacqueline Lamme

World Fine Art Professionals and their Key-Pieces, 217 – Jacqueline Lamme
On one of the hottest February days in years, perhaps the hottest February of the last 100 years, I visited Jacqueline Lamme. Jacqueline Lamme has a special studio. It is located in a six-storey studio housing complex in De Rivierenbuurt in the south of Amsterdam, which houses around thirty living / working spaces for artists. The building – modeled by Le Corbusier – has been there since 1934. Jacqueline has been there for 14 years.

Jacqueline Lamme: “The architect Piet Zanstra went to Paris to see something big: the ‘apartment studio’ of Le Corbusier. He was impressed and, together with Jan Giesen and Karel Sijmons, made a design for the Netherlands. Six variants of studio homes have been designed: including single studio homes for painters, studio homes for families and, on the ground floor, studios for sculptors.
Jan Wolkers and Gerrit van der Veen
Her studio home is intended for a couple. “It has large windows to the north so that the same light always comes in, which is important for painters. At the front, the front gate of the balcony can be removed to hoist paintings outside. The sculptors have large patio doors to get their marble statues outside. Famous artists have been here, for example Jan Wolkers (sculptor and author) and Gerrit van der Veen (artist and resistance hero) have worked at the studio home where Jet Schepp now lives: she has made the Anne Frank statue on Merwedeplein. ”

Het Vogelbos (the bird’s forest)
Jacqueline’s work space is slightly lower than the living space. To my right I see a large painting ‘in progress’ with a forest path through a forest full of trees. There are also three birds to see, the specialty of Jacqueline. In the forest there is a tree creeper and a nuthatch, and on the ground there is a finch. She has been working on this canvas for a few years, but it is almost finished. The painting also contained other representations, she says, but a number have already disappeared. “It became more and more a dense forest.” The work has no title yet. “It could be called ‘Vogelbos’ (birds forest) or ‘Multiverse’. I see the forest as a parallel world with the human world.” Behind the painting there are two paintings of swans on the wall, one white and one black, and many owls. “I have painted many species of animals, especially birds that occur in the Netherlands, on condition that I had to have spotted them once.” There is also a kingfisher and a yellow wagtail near a stream. Right in front of me I see woodpeckers and a finch. And just in front of me on the table a winter wren. On the left a painting full of cow parsley. The works are stored vertically in the upper left corner.

Nature and animals are an important theme. She also likes being in nature and often walks. Not only does Jacqueline love nature, it also applies to her family members. “Both my grandfathers, my parents and my sisters are crazy about birds. I once stood at a bird fair with my artwork. I have sold a number of paintings there, but bird watchers are people other than those you find in the art world. Two birders discussed a painting of mine as to whether the bird was technically perfect. ”

Herman Kruyder
Her favorite painter is Herman Kruyder. “He lived here at the beginning, until his death in 1935. Among other things, he made six animal paintings that all found a place in a museum (including the bull calf in the Singer Museum, the stallion in the Rijksmuseum Twente, the cat in the Gemeentemuseum The Hague, the rooster in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam and the dog in the Boijmans Van Beuningen Rotterdam). He was, just like me, inspired by nature and animals. I find it interesting that when he painted gardens, he did it in a non-sweet way. It appeals to me. It was all about painting. That is also the case with me. I try to let the paint do the work, so that the performance ‘withdraws’. “

Humour
Jacqueline has not always painted nature and animals. “I started with lyrical abstract landscapes. Then humor entered the work with kitschy symbols such as the snowball and crown prince Willem-Alexander in all kinds of funny situations, this coincided with the search for my own prince of my dreams. It was dreamy work with a wink and also successful. I ended up at Torch Gallery, which also brought the work to foreign fairs. After a while my own search was over, and I started to work more seriously with attention to landscapes and their inhabitants: birds and animals.” She also did it from a critical view of how we treat nature. “People are very focused on themselves, a bit too superior for me. I want to shift the focus on people as the center of the universe, also in my art. A few months ago there was a wood owl near Miranda swimming bath, but no one saw it. We may well get rid of the self-centered feeling of the human being. We are destroying the earth by the consuming behavior of the ever-growing group of people. Sometimes I find people a nuisance. “

Does she have a key work, a directional work? She can name one. It is a work in which both humor and nature are present. I see it on her phone. Chickens walking around in a park with box hedges that are cut in the shape of chickens. The real chickens do not realize that they are scratching between the boxwood chickens, a good example of a parallel world or multiverse. She saw it in the neighborhood, in the Amstelpark. The painting (2001) hangs in Ostend in the former Museum of Fine Arts, now called Mu.ZEE.

The ARTIS Ateliers
Jacqueline Lamme has been an artist for a long time. “From kindergarten. Drawing is in my blood. In my poetry album someone wrote a verse: ‘1,2,3,4,5,6, Jacqueline becomes a draftswoman’. In the first grade of primary school, now group 3, I drew after school, while the teacher was still checking the children’s works, with crayons on large colored sheets of paper, gnomes, elves and mushrooms. I was allowed to hang it on the back wall by the teacher. After a while the entire back wall was full. When others started playing, I always had the dilemma: do I play outside or do I draw? With good weather it is still a dilemma now, I would like to go outside. “
She went to the Rietveld Academy and also did the first-grade teacher training at Lutmastraat. That comes in handy because, in addition to her painting work, she also gives drawing and painting lessons at the ARTIS Ateliers. “Together with 14 other artist teachers, we give drawing, painting and modeling lessons at the zoo. I also coordinate these lessons with a colleague. There is a large club of students, 500 people per six months. There are many people who love animals as well as drawing and painting.” She has been working here since the year 2000. She started, already some time ago, as a drawing teacher at the Christian Gymnasium in Utrecht and now also gives painting lessons in her studio.

The chicken’s roaming
How does she experience art life? “It’s always a challenge. It used to be, and it still is. I never feel like that I have achieved my goal. Because of my half job, I have just enough time to work in my studio. For the rest, I would like to have more time for my work. I’m trying my best.”
Does she have a nice philosophical conclusion? She has. “The world is a multiverse of people and animals. If you accept that, you also accept that animals can and may shape their world, with all their roaming around. It is a kind of perspective mirror. It also has a great beauty. I also want to convey that. ”

Images
1) Barn Owl, 2012, oil on wood and frame, 43 x 53 cm, 2) Jay III, 2015, oil on canvas board and frame, 30 x 35 cm, 3) Alcedo atthis VII, 2016, oil on wood and frame, 80 x 40 cm, 4) ) European Green Woodpecker V, 2016, ceramic, 30 x 20 x 7 cm, 5) Snowy Owl I, 2016, acrylic. oil pastel, collage, oil on frame, 61 x 81 cm, 6) Barn Owls, 2017, oil paintings, drawing compressed charcoal, 150 x 170 cm, 7) Barn Owl, 2017, oil painting, drawing compressed charcoal, 170 x 125 cm, 8) Jacqueline Lamme, visual artist, 9) Multiverse I, 2017, mixed media, collage, acrylic. Oil pastel on paper, 150 x 150 cm. 10) Studio Zomerdijkstraat Amsterdam

https://www.jacquelinelamme.com/
https://ifthenisnow.eu/nl/verhalen/de-wereld-van-de-amsterdamse-kunstenaar-57-jacqueline-lamme