With their fourth exhibition Het Is Nog Lang Niet Af (It Is Far from Done), artist collective LOOS, consisting of Kitty Boon (1959), Gabrielle Kroese (1963) and Dineke Oosting (1976), is celebrating its fourth anniversary. How was LOOS created? How are colours chosen? And what is Papiermolen de Annex?
Dineke Oosting: "Kitty invited Gabrielle and me to organise an exhibition together in the town hall of the municipality of Vries in Tynaarlo. That's actually how it came about. From there, we started doing multiple exhibitions.’
Gabrielle Kroese: ‘I don't think Dineke and I knew each other yet, and Kitty brought us together. The works we create per exhibition respond to the space and to each other.’
Kitty Boon: ‘I was very charmed by the work of Dineke and Gabrielle. So what do you have to do to exhibit with good artists? Then you have to ask them if they want to participate. I also saw similarities between the works. Then I didn't quite know how to name those similarities, which was also a certain feeling — things I saw.’
Oosting: ‘For each expo, we look at what each has brought, what fits together, what creates stories. In the first expo, there were certainly similarities.’
Kroese: ‘In this expo, for example, we have quite a few similarities in colour. I myself work a lot with coloured areas; there are a lot of recurring colours in Kitty's work; Dineke's work is very colourful.
Our expos are snapshots. The title ‘Het Is Nog Lang Niet Af’ has to do with a process, which is never finished if it's any good. When it is finished, you might be done working. Each presentation concludes something and calls for a new presentation, a new work. I hope we can make many more presentations. Also, we think it would be fun to make more books. I’d be happy for it to go on for while longer.’
Boon: ‘Papiermolen de Annex (Paper Mill - The Annex) is an art space in the former locker rooms of the Papiermolen swimming pool. This is a new space, so it is not yet very well known that you can exhibit there. A place like this, where you do things together, make things together: I think has a very nice atmosphere.’
Oosting: ‘Every space is different: you have to play with this and deal with that. The space is very solid. That requires quite a bit, then you really have to put something down. That’s when you really get to work.’
Kroese: ‘In the paintings and photographs, I have a figurative image and I paste coloured areas over it. This is fairly random: I get the colours from a small Japanese book, a kind of dictionary with all the colour combinations. It contains more than 150 colours. I pick these blindly, so it's a fluke. I put these colours over the figurative image to create a second layer and to disrupt ‘looking’ at the image. People think, “What am I looking at?” For this exhibition I also painted coloured areas like this on the wall: this space was great for that. For walls I have the colours mixed at Praxis; for small works I mix the colours by hand. The longer I work with the booklet, the more amazing I find it that those colours always match. Magic.’
Boon: ‘I'm very much here. Groningen and Zuidlaren are definitely my scene. I find it comfortable here. It does seem exciting to me to go to Japan or China once as well, to be immersed in a completely different culture.’ (Editor’s note: she is referring to Kroes' and Oosting's residencies in Japan and China)
Oosting: ‘I can use anything. A thrift store is a big warehouse for me. I see something in everything I encounter. My studio is also very full of materials. I have to see them, and then pick, shuffle, play. From there, objects and spatial installations emerge. I really play with that: hang up, take down, hang up again, and keep going. Anything and everything is possible.’