 |  |
Riet van HalderNetherlands (born 1930) “There are many apparently fully integrated individuals who, usually late in life, begin to create compulsively and without the intention of producing marketable art. These include examples such as Scottie Wilson, as well as more recent discoveries such as Riet van Halder. Van Halder is a Dutch housewife who only began to draw and paint at the age of fifty-nine after a voice urged her to do so while she was vacuuming the house. As with Wilson, her drawings are a response to an imagined world that is revealed, dreamlike, in the act of drawing and painting. The stylistic similarities of van Halders’s work compared with that of Jean Dubuffet are all the more remarkable because of her complete ignorance of art history. On being shown some reproductions of work by Dubuffet recently, Van Halder was interested to discover how he had come to produce work similar to hers.” — Colin Rhodes, Outsider Art: Spontaneous Alternatives, Riet van Halder began her artwork in 1989. At first, her family found it rather strange to see her become so constantly absorbed in painting. But she could not resist her sudden creative impulse. Before long she had experimented with all the different ink and paint that she could find. That means a cutting edge assortment when one lives in the Netherlands. Her preferred media was paint, which she applied with a multitude of implements on a variety of high quality art paper. Fittingly, she used a vast color palette. She has also employed string, cardboard, linen and other media to add surface texture to various work. Van Halder’s paintings are densely populated with free form figures. Their expressions are predominately benevolent. There is much to contemplate. They are feminine counterpoint for the masculine work of Jean Dubuffet. Most of her paintings are to be viewed up close. That seems to be the common trait of entranced process art. Though, in a few of her works larger forms appear when they are viewed at a distance. She seldom titled her pieces. Van Halder often became unconscious of the creative act while painting. After finishing a work she was as captured by its beauty and mystery as a first time viewer. In 2004, her ability to connect with her creative source was severed by chemotherapy which she received for melanoma. Creative channeling is a rare and fragile process of which there are likely many degrees including surrealist automatism and mediumistic automatism. I am familiar with few artists who appear to have (have had) such true ability. In two instances that process seems to have been disturbed by changes in body chemistry. Van Halder has been unable to create for three years. Hopefully she will regain her inspiration. She tries. It saddens her that she has been unable to paint. She now spends her time gardening instead. Van Halder’s paintings are in the permanent collections of the American Folk Art Museum, New York and the Dr. Guislain Museum, Ghent, Belgium, formerly the collection of the Museum De Stadshof, Zwolle, Netherlands. Her work was included in the prestigious INSITA triennial at the Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava, Slovakia in 1997.
George Jacobs Self-Taught Art |
To purchase art, please note the artist and the artwork name and email us at george@self-taughtart.com or call us at 401-847-0991. Mastercard and Visa accepted. Click on images for a larger view.
|
