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