My work expresses both my Dutch and Chinese heritage and my search
to understand the principles of life. As a child of a Dutch father
and Chinese mother, I spent most of my childhood in the Far East
(Hong Kong, Singapore). In my work these influences are quite apparent.
I strive to merge both the sense of emptiness and transparency of Eastern
art with the more structured approach of Western art into a personal
visual language. This balancing between oppositions underlies all my work:
between layeredness and emptiness, control and spontaneity, sense and
intuition; between more and less.
The essence of my work is not to make a perfect or beautiful picture, I am
mainly looking for a way to express my ideas about life and awareness.
Making art is like meditating on life. The created image functions as a reminder
to not lose acquired perceptions.
I feel affinity with the Japanese notion of “wabi sabi”: the beauty of things,
impermanent, imperfect and incomplete. To me the essence of the materials I use
are related to this notion.
The liquidity of ink, the many nuances between black and white, the fragility
and transparency of rice paper, the irregular twisting of strings, the delicate
brokenness of a pencil stroke, even the cold sturdiness of metal: the integrity
of these materials evokes a sense of belonging, of being part of this greater
whole, this universe, realising life is transient, that relationships give meaning
to our life. That all in life is based on oppositions, not to oppose, but to
complement and give meaning.
I work in different layers, combining bold gestures of ink with tiny delicate
materials. Each layer demanding its own technique, material and attitude. Each
layer expressing its own meaning. Bringing these layers together, accentuating
their transparency by making them visible through each other, I try to convey this
sense of interconnectedness.
But in the end the artwork is not about me. It is just an image, in its own right.
And what really matters –quoting Henri David Thoreau– is not what you look at,
but what you see.”
Sandra van der Meulen