Wendelien Bakker

Fieldwork / Landscape

Dsc 2592
Moving the Horizon / Documentation image / 2016.

Think of Sisyphus, repeatedly rolling a boulder to the peak of a hill only to watch it roll down again. Within the myth lives effort, hope, disappointment, failure and repeated trying. Much the same, a relentless determination for some self-defined legitimacy informs my practice.

Fieldwork/Landscape involves a curiosity about the environment, and an endurance and determination to change it—my practice, in a way, is the fighting with and against nature. My surrounding environment demands an awareness of my body in relation to space. By using different landscapes as a lens, I process my relationship to place and land. How does a place respond to us?

This curiosity intuitively evolves into project-based works that are built up on elusive hopes with equal potential for resolution or disappointment. Like most Sisyphean tasks, it is a naïve conquest for the potentially impossible.  


Each of my pursuits circle around an instinctive desire. Whether it is wanting to move the horizon or to capture the movement of water on paper; wanting to own land or grow the blackest tulip. By simply starting these initial wants, each proposition is navigated through a DIY approach and a strong reliance on the individual and the environment. This self-reliance adds mentally and physically performative elements to otherwise largely research-based projects.

 
Concrete Moondeed
Moon deed in Concrete / 250x450mm / concrete, paper / 2016.
027 A2504
Installation / Moving the horizon / Elam grad show / 2016.
Attempt 36
Attempt to catch movement of water / Attempt 36 of 292 (ongoing) / 190x250mm / Acrylic on Hahnemuhle rough 300gsm, Perspex / 2016.
Mirage 003
Moving the Horizon / Moving image still 1 / print / 2016.
Attempt 208 11Enhalfx10Cm
Attempt to catch movement of water / Attempt 203 of 292 (ongoing) / 150x210 / Watercolour on Hahnemuhle coldpress 300gsm / 2016.
Tulip Bags
Black Tulips September 2016 / 400x520mm / plastic, earth, tape / 2016.

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