Six recently graduated artists from Academie Minerva and the Frank Mohr Institute are exhibiting at Galerie Noord in February, during Aanwas V. Without having to leave your house, you can take a look at some of the works here: we are giving you a sample of three artists. What was their graduate work, how did they grow, and what are they presenting at Aanwas?
RUEBEN MILLENAAR (1991): THE BIGGER PICTURE
Rueben Millenaar graduated in illustration. His final exam was a study of the racism debate in the Netherlands and the various positions therein. ‘At first I had a very presumptuous attitude. I was very sure of my own opinion and stood fiercely behind it. I was upset that racism was trickling back to the surface and that, in my mind, we have to rehash an old discussion: everyone is equal. I didn't think that made any sense, and I couldn't understand why there are people who still think that skin colour has or should have any influence at all on an individual's opportunities. With my research, I tried to work toward a conclusion, but I found that there is no one right answer: sure, racism is bad, but how do you deal with it?’
At Aanwas, Rueben presents a selection of works from his final project, along with a few new works. He calls it a ‘best of’. He has left the racism debate alone for a while, but his new works do play back into racism and broader themes in society. ‘During my research, I discovered that it's not just racism that's at play, but that there is a general attitude that causes polarisation. Now I'm looking at the larger tensions in society.’ One of these new works, also a drawing, is about climate change and global warming. ‘In the foreground people are digging pits for themselves, while from the background a large fire approaches. Instead of people working together, it's everyone for themselves.
ZHIXIN LIAO (1990): CONFUSION AND FREEDOM
Zhixin Liao graduated in Painting from the Frank Mohr Institute. He has only just moved to the Netherlands; in China he completed his master’s in Painting. While studying here, he also did an exchange in New York. All three of these cultures are different, he says: ‘China focuses very much on the techniques, while the Netherlands focuses very much on your ideas, your concept, what you want to do. The USA is another different one: there the emphasis is on your personality and the things you have done before. Here in the Netherlands, I feel most like an artist.’
Zhixin's graduation project had the theme of ‘inaccuracy’: you think something is correct, but it is not. When we talk or communicate, things always get mixed up: ‘People will always ignore the purpose of the conversation; there is a lot of miscommunication. I saw this especially in the USA, for example, with the work Dogs That Cannot Touch Each Other by Sun Yuan and Peng Yu. This work has been banned from the Guggenheim Museum. The combination of artist, Chinese and dog creates a negative association for many Americans: a misunderstanding.’
At Aanwas, Zhixin presents the work There are twenty-four kinds of waste from the West. I was a constituent. This work addresses the recent trash ban by China. ‘I connected different plastics to make a sculpture and painting. It looks like this is a standard painting, wrapped up and hung firmly to the wall: I call this a kidnapping. Everything is plastic, from the bubble wrap to the painting. I even 3D-printed the screws with plastic. I use the plastics that China has banned as import materials. As a Chinese artist in the Netherlands, it is a personal issue whether I am forbidden or welcome.’
Nokukhanya Langa is also a graduate in Painting. Her graduate work consists of three layers: ‘Basically, my work is an investigation of painting techniques and painting methods. In my graduate work, I left figurative work behind, and began to create more abstract works. As a second layer, I tried to create a kind of domestic, idyllic atmosphere. For example, I hung a backpack from a flag, a typical Dutch exam ritual. As a third layer, I talk about my experiences as a woman of colour. The wall reads like this: ‘Am i not a woman and a sister?’
For Noku, one of the most important lessons of her graduation was to combine different media and objects to create a larger story, although she always considers herself a painter. ‘From video to smaller works, mural painting, using clay and plaster — I've picked up things that I could never have seen as art or options before. I've realised that I don't have to rely on my paintings to tell a story.’ In Aanwas, Noku had less space than in the graduation project, which was at the sugar factory. This means that she cannot make a similar installation. In her new work, Nokukhanya explores different and new ways of painting. ‘I want to combine the figurative and the abstract. When someone looks at a work, there shouldn't be a sharp line between the two.’
Aanwas V opens Saturday, 2 February at 17.00 and will be on display until 28 February. For more information, visit Galerie Noord’s website: galerienoord.nl/expo/aanwas-v/
text: Michiel Teeuw
image: Rueben Millenaar, Zhixin Liao, Nokukhanya Langa