English

Karin Hoogesteger’s paintings depict her continuous search for the reality hidden behind the reality. People are always the subject, in particular the child because the cultivation of our known reality starts at childhood. As we grow, the environment in which we live gives us boundaries and (sub)consciously imprint society’s rules upon us.

Looking at the paintings, the spectator can identify himself with the depicted, allowing him to participate in the quest for the abstraction of creation and the origin of the emotion in himself.

Karin uses a layered technique, generally acrylics with pencil, sometimes mixed with charcoal, ink or Chinese (rice) paper. She prefers to work on the plain, not primed linen, because it symbolizes the “pure” self…

 

© Photo’s Inge van den Hoven

 

About SUM, recent works (2010/2011)

The paintings at the exhibition SUM, are result of a search of the artist for the State of Being. Shown are different approaches of – I AM – . The Self, the Soul, is not a ‘has been’ or ‘want-a-be’. We imagine ourselves to be something we are not, but we are always who we really are, and not who we have imagined ourselves to be. The thinking mind is not the Self.
Some of the paintings, like ‘God’s Bride’ show the the belief of most people that they are something, which they are not or the desire to be something they are not… (which is one of the main causes of suffering in our lives). Some of the paintings are about the ‘state of being’ itself.
In ‘SUM’, portraits of Islamic girls are shown, but the positioning of the veils and patterns refer to Christian portraits of the Madonna. The paintings exceed the subjective character of a portrait and become more universal.