Amsterdam-based artist Elisabet Stienstra (1967) is exhibiting her work again in her native Groningen after 30 years. Last month in the Oosterpark neighbourhood, her artwork De Figuurtoren (The Figure Tower) was unveiled at CBK Groningen. Her autonomous work is currently on display in the exhibition entitled The Female Presence. The viewer fantasises, associates and wonders, where do these images of women come from? And how is public work so different from her autonomous work? We attended a lecture by her.
Stienstra began her art studies at Academie Minerva in 1984. She started making large steel structures. She calls them ‘almost carnival-like attractions’. Although the approach of her works has changed, the goal remains the same: to make a change or impact through someone's perception of art. Yet there is definitely a difference between her autonomous work and work she has created on commission.
THE INSPIRATION FOR A NEW CONTEMPORARY IMAGE OF SAINTS BEGAN IN ITALY
The true inspiration for the beginning of Stienstra's autonomous work can be found in Tuscany, Italy. A work of art created after 1457, called Madonna del Parto, by Piero della Francesca. This sculpture of Mary with a hand on her pregnant belly and with two angels at her side is very important to Stienstra. As Stienstra herself says, you can also see in that image what she wants to show in her images of women: duality, reality and beauty. Stienstra's virgins exude strength, almost aggression.
DIFFERENT IMAGES OF WOMEN WITH THE SAME UNDERLYING IDEA
‘Virgin of light’, ‘Virgin of merci’ and ‘Virgin of obscene words’. Behind each of these sculptures is a different, unique source of inspiration. From an ancient figurine where a snake climbs up from the vagina of a female figure to the rays of the sun from an artful sign she saw in the Louvre. Not just art inspires Stienstra, so do poetry, photography and contemporary statements by young people. They have different meanings, but still the same waves in their hair, melancholic or an explicit facial expressions and the use of natural materials. The images come from one thought, or quest actually, which is to form a contemporary image of saints: a kind of new Mary. Reinventing the traditional nude as well, according to Stienstra.
My sculptures are certainly not meant to be sexually or biologically correct. Elisabet Stienstra
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PUBLIC AND AUTONOMOUS WORK
For Stienstra, a commissioned work is all about blending the sculpture into its surroundings. Architecture, the history of the place, the people, nature: everything comes together in such an image. ‘De Maagden van Apeldoorn’ (The Virgins of Apeldoorn - 2001) is a great example of this, as this work fits perfectly on the traffic circle where it was placed. Three images of women floating side by side as if in a dream, as if gravity no longer has any influence on humans. ‘When the sculpture was unveiled there, there was a traffic jam around the traffic circle because people kept driving around to get a better look at the artwork,’ Stienstra says.
DE FIGUURTOREN IN THE OOSTERPARK NEIGHBOURHOOD
In the middle of the Oosterpark neighbourhood stands an eight-metre-high, white granite sculpture consisting of stacked figures. Everything you want to see in a sculpture of this calibre, as well as what you don't expect to see, is in there. The history of the neighbourhood: a ball as a reference to the old FC Groningen stadium, children, a husband and wife busy talking — eleven figures all with their own reference to the area. Even the material and position of De Figuurtoren are a nod to how the Oosterpark neighbourhood was constructed.
The exhibition The Female Presence at CBK Groningen will be on display until 6 July 2019.