World Fine Art Professionals and their Key-Pieces, 267 - Yvon Koopman

 

World Fine Art Professionals and their Key-Pieces, 267 – Yvon Koopman
You will immediately recognize the artworks of Yvon Koopman. They are colorful and full of fantasy. She often collaborates with schools, neighborhoods, municipalities and then aims to let people become active themselves. In addition to commissioned work, she also makes autonomous work.
Yvon Koopman creates a world that does not exist. She makes something out of nothing, at first sight insignificant components. At the moment she is making a turtle, a stray turtle to be precise. Yvon: “It started with a broken tennis ball and a few twigs. They turned out to be a good match. ”

Fantasy language
Sometimes she uses torn Chinese or Arabic newspapers, creating her own fantasy language inspired by the calligraphic possibilities of those letters. “It feels like I’m in a protected area, fleeing from the evil outside world.” But more often she seeks out the outside world, in various ‘participation projects’.

Porticos

In the Schiedam district of Nieuwland, a neighborhood built in the 1950s, a neighborhood with many immigrants, she did a ‘Portico project’, in which she collaborated with the housing cooperative Woonplus. Every resident of a portico delivered precious things. She made a still life of this which she photographed and which was then printed on a plate and hung above their own portico door.

Postcard
“It concerned 64 porticos. Six families live in each portico. It took a lot of logistics, because in the end the objects had to be neatly returned to the families.” There are minarets to be seen, camels, coffee and teapots, footwear, fruit, tree fruit, dancers and flags, beautifully combined and provided with a colorful frame that matches the color of the portico. The housing cooperative had the idea to have a booklet made of it. But it seemed better to Yvon to make postcards out of it. “They can do more with that. That also turned out to work out well. ”

Light trail
In the project ‘Winterlight’ she did a community art project with the elderly in the Julianapark in Schiedam. The light trail consisted of creased sandwich bags with light sticks in them. “I made a performance with the elderly, a trail of light in the dark. The lit paper baggies were transported in walkers and scattered in the park. They loved it. They played a role in the whole, which made them part of the artwork. ”
Tree pots
15 giant tree pots appeared in bright colors with a tree in them, along the Doenkade in Rotterdam, exactly as it looks on the windowsill, but a little bigger. “The pots, made of polyester, are two meters high and have a diameter of 2.27 meters, they have no bottom so that the tree roots can continue to grow. The pots are available in any ‘RAL color’. In Spijkenisse there is a blue copy on Lobelia Square with a poem on the edge of a resident of the district. ”

Chandelier
In the hall of the public primary school De Kring in Schiedam she made a chandelier, incorporating drawings of the children into the design. The lamp has a diameter of one and a half meters and rotates slowly, projecting the drawings, moving through the space, on the walls. “It was a real magic lantern. The school initially asked for a mural, but I wanted something more exciting. I made the design, I had never done anything like it. The children were flabbergasted. ‘Mother, I also want such a lamp in the bedroom,’ I heard.” If she were to designate a key work, it would be this work.

Tower from Leiden
The ‘tower’ of the old LUMC (Leiden academic hospital) she saved from demolition and is now prominent in the pond of a Schiedam park as a beacon with a different color of light each season, green – spring, yellow – summer, red – autumn and blue in the winter.
Stronky
She was nominated as ‘inventor of the year’ by IDNL for her ‘anti-parking trees’ ‘Stronky’, made in bronze, her alternative to ‘the Amsterdammertje’.
White
She made panels of crinkled sandwich bags in the project ‘White’, and a bridal dress was made from Christmas tree packaging for a recycle fashion show. “2nd prize won.”

Fifty
How does she experience art life? “I am very satisfied with how things are going. There is always something going on, and I constantly meet other people and get new ideas. When I turned 50 I made an exhibition of objects that people received as gifts. It was all about the story behind it. I wrote that down. So I got 50 stories from 50 people. ” And so she meets all kinds of layers of the population. “That is a common thread. Not only a teacher, but also a dentist, a driving instructor, someone who works in waste disposal, an artist and so on. ”

Sixty
When she turned sixty, she had collected objects from residents of the care center over time and turned them into objects. “I had a part-time job in basic care in Rotterdam.” The gallery was nearby for residents to visit. The exhibition was opened by the Mayor, Aboutaleb. “He also had to bring in an object. He took a bowl from his great-grandmother. It was a special exhibition. ”

Understanding art
There are always conversations about a project. “I’ve known that from way back. I used to be in education, handicraft education, N20 it was then called. Only at a somewhat later age, in my mid-thirties, did I go to the Rotterdam Art Academy. ”
She thinks it is important that art is not something that can only be understood (and purchased) by one layer of the population. “If people don’t understand what something represents, they can always ask me. I like that it is clear. The bridges I build to groups in society give me a lot of energy. ”
Images
1) Winter light, 2003, 2) Tree pots, 3) White, 4) images of litter, 5) Chandelier, 6) Portico 2, 7) Portico 5, 8) Yvon Koopman, 9) fashion award, 10) Stronk

 

www.yvonkoopman.nl
https://ifthenisnow.eu/nl/verhalen/yvon-koopman-kunst-voor-alle-lagen-van-de-bevolking