Interview

Mélanie Struik visited me during the lockdown to interview me.

Click here to read the article in Dutch

This interview with Karin Hoogesteger offers an insight into her life as an artist, her evolving work, and the challenges she’s faced, especially during the pandemic. Her focus on nature, personal expression, and the impact of her surroundings on her creative process shines through, alongside her decision to balance her art with a practical role as a bus driver. Her dedication to making art and organizing projects, despite financial instability, highlights her commitment to her craft.

Translated by ChatGPT

Original interview in Dutch: https://www.sbkvoorburg.nl/in-gesprek/in-gesprek-met-hoogesteger

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In Conversation with… Hoogesteger

On a beautiful day in May – right in the middle of the pandemic – I traveled to Zutphen, one of those charming towns by the IJssel River, for an interview with visual artist Karin Hoogesteger. I love rivers, their landscapes, and the towns along them, so it wasn’t a chore. Not by train (I couldn’t even think about that, and besides, was this an essential job during the pandemic?), but with my own “chauffeur.” They were also eager for a little outing during the lockdown. It felt quite luxurious.

A surprised look, hand over her mouth, “Oh, was it today? I thought you were someone here to pick up kefir,” and then there was all the time in the world. I had estimated the interview would take 1.5 to 2 hours, but after 3 hours my ‘chauffeur’ rang the bell, asking where I had gotten to… Karin Hoogesteger is the artist of the month in June at Kunstuitleen Voorburg.

Karin lives in Zutphen on the edge of the city center, with a view of the Vispoort. Her studio is in the basement, which is practical but also comes with limitations: she can no longer work as high up as she was accustomed to. Last year, she had a studio in Hengelo with a ceiling height of five meters, but now the height is limited to two meters, although the width is unlimited, which she also enjoys. And those large works wouldn’t fit in her van anyway. Karin sometimes dreams of creating truly monumental works – very large pieces – but she notices that people interested in her work have a hard time fitting even a diptych that is 3 meters wide and 1.5 meters high into their homes.

… Karin’s studio, front view… …

*The Mind-Forged Manacles I Hear*, 2103, acrylic on canvas, 160 × 260 cm.

… Karin’s studio, rear view: a large diptych like this is hard to fit into a home…

“Sometimes I can live off my art. I recently sold a few works from the *Cultivated Nature* series to the funeral company Dela, and they’ve also appeared in a beautiful book. That helps me get by for a few months. During this pandemic, things have been difficult. I had five exhibitions lined up, all of which were canceled. I was part of the *Nooit Meer, Nie Wieder* exhibition at Museum No Hero in Delden, commemorating 75 years of liberation. I designed a banner for this exhibition, which has been postponed. From late May, the postponed *Botanica* exhibition at Galerie Nasty Alice in Eindhoven will finally open, albeit in a modified format. All four exhibitors will have their own day to attend, so there will be four openings. I was also supposed to exhibit with Nasty Alice at the Appèl-Galeries fair in June, but that’s been rescheduled to October 2020.”

… *CN14-B52.137473L6.192855*, 2018, 180 × 120 cm, collection Dela, the Netherlands (photo by Karin Hoogesteger)

“I’ve organized two other exhibitions myself. I lived in Andalusia, Spain, for a while in 2014/2015 and was shocked by the large amounts of agricultural plastic just dumped around the area. I gathered it up last summer, three van-loads. I left two van-loads there and asked eight Spanish artists to make a piece with it. I took one load back to the Netherlands and asked five Dutch artists to create something with it, and I am making two myself, one of which is still in production. We were supposed to exhibit at the Apeldoorn Center for Contemporary Culture (ACEC) starting April 18 under the title *Sea Without Plastic, Mar Sin Plastico*. This exhibition has also been postponed, just like the IJssel Biennale at the Langhuis in Zwolle, where the same exhibition will be shown with the six Dutch artists of *Mar Sin Plastico*. Luckily, none of these have been canceled; they could have been.”

*Plastic Life*, 2020, plastic, LED panel, leaves, 120 × 60 × 35 cm.

… one of Karin’s contributions to the *Sea Without Plastic, Mar Sin Plastico* exhibition… (photo by Karin Hoogesteger)

“I love to do things, organize them, and that takes up a lot of time, time that I can’t spend painting. That’s why I stopped teaching a year and a half ago. I really enjoy teaching, but it takes up so much time. I worked for cultural centers in Doetinchem, Zutphen, and Enschede. It was always very irregular; sometimes I’d give two or three lessons in one day at a school, but other times it would be three training sessions for IC teachers – teachers who have culture in their school curriculum – over a three-month period. I also coached teachers, wrote teaching methods, and coached teachers on that. I worked with Karin Kotte’s method, who developed a process-oriented pedagogy. What I liked about teaching was meeting so many different people: children, parents, teachers, principals. The IC teachers were always the most enthusiastic.”

“Since I stopped teaching, I miss a regular income. I do receive a small loan fee for works I have on loan at the art lending institutions, but it’s only a small amount. That’s why I started training to be a bus driver a year and a half ago, for financial stability. My work is solitary, and as a bus driver, I can still have contact with people. For me, that little chat during the day is important. I passed my exams and was ready to drive, but the pandemic threw a wrench in that. I’ll finally start as a temp driver in Arnhem in June. The flexibility is great; I can decide when I can and want to work. I plan to do this about one and a half days per week, preferably on Sundays, so I get the 100% premium.”

“In high school, I wanted to go to art academy: I was good at drawing and wanted to become an illustrator. And I can visualize well – what I want, I make happen. After high school, at 16, I applied to three art academies, but they all thought I was too young. ‘Go abroad for a year,’ they said. I thought that was a waste of time and chose to study teaching drawing in Zwolle. I loved it so much that I completed the four-year program. Then, in 1994, I went to the Art Academy in Kampen (now Zwolle) for another three years and graduated as an illustrator. I started working as a freelance illustrator and continued teaching part-time because I didn’t want to fully go into teaching. I wanted to be free and have enough time to make my own art.”

… Karin illustrated children’s books, for example…

“The seven years of art education gave me a lot: a lot of portrait drawing, figure drawing, color theory, knowledge of light and dark, perspective, materials knowledge. I also became very good at sketching from observation. I had learned a lot about techniques, which came in handy when I started painting – only after art school. At the academy, I never knew what to paint; I preferred drawing. After working a few years as a freelance illustrator, I realized I wasn’t happy working on commissions. Plus, I had always worked very small, and suddenly I felt an enormous urge to work larger. And that became painting. At first, I painted self-portraits from old childhood photos. I used old canvases that were stored in the hallway of the studio building in Hengelo, where I had my workspace at the time.”

“The first works were well received. The interim director of an art center in Hengelo, who also worked for the municipality, immediately wanted to buy a few for the art lending collection. I made those works mainly for myself, having exhibited with and for friends, and then realized that these paintings weren’t just interesting to me and my friends, but maybe to others too, because they recognized themselves in them. I started painting other children as well. That’s when I realized I no longer wanted to work on commissions and wanted to create something more personal, to express my inner self on a canvas. That turned out to suit me much better. I then stopped illustrating and fully focused on painting. Through the interim director, I had my first solo exhibition at that art center in Hengelo.”

“I love traveling, and my art travels all over the Netherlands and Europe. I moved to Zutphen for my son, it’s a city that’s not too big, perfect for growing up, and I’m a fan of IJssel cities. When I was younger, I wanted to live in the Randstad, but not anymore. I was born in Emmeloord and grew up in Nijverdal. My mother is from Groningen, and my father is from Zeeland, so moving is in my blood. I lived a year in Spain, very primitively, but it was wonderful. I ended up here in Zutphen. In Spain, I lived in Andalusia on a mountain with a view of the sea, completely self-sufficient, in a yurt (tent) with solar panels. There was electricity – well, if the sun kept shining – from the solar panels, and the water came from the mountain. I realized that if I washed my clothes with detergent, the wastewater immediately flowed into the vegetable garden. That obviously wasn’t right, so I started using soap nuts. I learned a lot there.”

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**”I like working in series; I make a plan to create an entire series, but often after the third piece, I become bored again. I paint on unprimed linen, which hasn’t been ‘sized’—that is, a thin layer of chalk is applied to the canvas to level it. The color of the fabric itself is the first layer for me. It’s hard to capture light on a white canvas, as you’d immediately need to apply shadow. On a mid-tone color, you can make both the light and dark areas in an image visible. You immediately have a sketch without needing to fill the image with shadows first. As an illustrator, I always worked on colored paper. For example, with the *Blue Girl* piece below, I first painted the canvas a mid-tone blue. From there, you can add the light and dark accents.”

*Kindsbeeld #1*, 1999, 120 × 100 cm, the first in the *Kindsbeelden* series, *The Blue Girl*.

**”I work with many different techniques and materials: charcoal, conté pencil, Siberian chalk, watercolor pencils, very diluted acrylic paint (in layers, and I use it wet because I love how it flows together), chalk dissolved in water (which behaves like watercolor), and occasionally oil paint. I also use paper, wire, spray paint, linocut, and just regular colored pencils. I’ve worked on panel and with linocut as well. I had a printing press, which I sold when I moved to Spain. I thought I would stay there.”**

**”For me, creativity is the combination of one newly discovered thing with another, and repeating that over and over. It may seem like a magic box to others, but to me, it’s very logical. In many of my paintings, sacred geometry plays a role—a centuries-old way of thinking that posits that everything in nature is based on an underlying geometry, on abstract primal forms. Plato was already dealing with this, and long before him, the Egyptians. During the Renaissance, this way of thinking gained a new impulse as scientists and artists began reading the rediscovered texts of Plato, such as Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). Leonardo not only used sacred geometry but also much more sacred knowledge about light, dark, lines, gaze directions, gestures, and proportions. In this sense, I do feel a connection with him. My love of geometry also relates to the fact that I have an enormous spatial sense. I didn’t get that from nowhere—my father was a math teacher. I can also get irritated when the proportions of the human body don’t work in another’s artwork.”**

**”I translate this thinking into my paintings through layering. In the *SUM (I Am)* series, I combine Eastern symbolism—symbolized here by the geometric shapes found in the Alhambra in Granada, Spain—with Christian symbolism: the girl’s headscarf could be Islamic, but it could also represent the Christian Virgin Mary.”**

*SUM (I Am): SUM #1*, 2012, mixed technique on canvas, 150 × 150 cm… The geometric pattern comes from the Alhambra in Granada, Spain…

**”For me, sacred geometry is a blueprint for life, the way cells are organized in all living beings. No matter who you are or what you look like, on a cellular level, we are all exactly the same. It is our thinking that makes the difference—that we believe we are different from one another. These paintings are a way for me to express my view on life, but they also stem from my wish to convey the insight that we are all the same, my desire for unity between people.”**

**”This layering also appears in the series of self-portraits titled *Unveiled*. In the first piece, you can see the fusion of a Hindu Tantric God and Goddess, but also a contemporary woman who hides her head under an umbrella. For me, this represents connecting with others—or not. In the second work, three dimensions overlap: the Hindu goddess Káli, who represents the creative aspect before creation occurred, when the old had to be destroyed first. Then there’s Mata Hari, the spy, who bears my face, thus making it a self-portrait. These dimensions represent, for me, the three different development paths of the position of women up until now: the goddess who first destroys the old life and then initiates the new life; Mata Hari, who for me symbolizes the decline of patriarchy; and my self-portrait, which represents the time I live in: after the long path of the Dolle Mina group and feminist waves, leading to a better embedding of the feminine today, though still within patriarchy. There is still no matriarchy.”**

*Unveiled 1*, 2017, mixed techniques, 200 × 140 cm. (photo from Karin Hoogesteger’s website)

*Unveiled 2*, 2017, mixed techniques, 200 × 160 cm. (photo from Karin Hoogesteger’s website)

**”The third piece is called *Frida/Karin* (working title) and is a double portrait, which I have made to resemble both Frida Kahlo’s face and mine. It’s a mix of Frida and myself, based on a self-portrait of Frida Kahlo. I made the size larger and invented a body (mine) to go with it. In this work, the focus is on my relationship with and understanding of female artists from history, painted against a very different background, namely green nature. The last (fourth) work in this series is also painted with a green nature background. I am sitting on the back of a deer in the little black dress I often wear at openings. The proportions aren’t quite right, and that’s done very deliberately. This work represents my relationship to the art world. The deer represents fear, always being on alert, something I often perceive in that world. The deer can be startled at any moment, and then I’ll be on the ground. The art world is a completely different world than mine, and yet I’m very much involved in it. It’s a world of relationships and networks, knowing the right path. I don’t have much to do with that. That’s why I leave the sale of my work to a gallery. Let me mess around in my studio, and everyone can do what they’re good at.”**

*Unveiled 3*, 2017, mixed techniques, 1200 × 150 cm. (photo from Karin Hoogesteger’s website)

*Unveiled 4*, 2018-2020, mixed techniques, 200 × 150 cm.

**”Lately, I’ve been painting a lot more nature scenes. That’s because of my time in Spain. There, I couldn’t paint large pieces, so I began making smaller works inspired by light. In Spain, the sun is so present. In small sketches, I started playing with the effects of light and shadow, and from those sketches, I began making larger works.”**

…sketches in small format, made in Spain, playing with light and dark…

**”Gradually, more plants have started appearing in my work. In Spain, the human figure became less important to me. I myself also changed there. I was initially focused on how the human mind worked, human psychology, how people are shaped in the world, which is why I began with child figures. In Spain, this became less important, and I began to distance myself. Instead of looking inward, I started looking outward. That change came because of the sun there, which fundamentally altered things for me. Anything that doesn’t have sunlight on it changes completely as an image once the sun shines on it. The sun as a source of light. Now I sometimes feel like I would like to approach those two worlds again, but this time together in a new work, although these worlds are already integrated in the *Unveiled* series.”**

*City Symphony*, 2019, 100 × 140 cm, mixed techniques

**”I am now working on a new series in which I want to make what is invisible, tangible. This terrace in the photo above is now without people. I realize that this is very timely in the current pandemic era. Those spherical forms represent the invisible, which could be anything. The activity that could take place on such a spot might be a conversation, or the complete absence of people. It evokes a certain feeling and indicates that there is always an extra element present, one that is tangible but not visible. And that’s where the imagination of the viewer comes into play.”**

May 2020

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**Interview by Mélanie Struik**