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Noella Roos: BODY AS THE LANDSCAPE
With charcoal as her medium, artist Noella Roos explores the body as a landscape in her latest solo exhibition
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With charcoal as her medium, artist Noella Roos explores the body as a landscape in her latest solo exhibition.
Originally from the Netherlands, Roos has been living in Bali for the past seven years where she regularly collaborates with dancers to create her drawings.
In her current solo exhibition, titled 'Between the Lines' at the Cemara 6 Gallery in Jakarta, the artist continues to explore the universal values of European classical art while drawing attention to local culture.
In an introduction at the exhibition's opening, art critic and anthropologist Jean Couteau said the artist attempts to capture the spirit of taksu, the Balinese dance performance, in her works.
Roos said the techniques of one of the classical European masters, Michelangelo, was something she employed in her work.
'Michelangelo's drawings are still a heroic way of approaching man. Strong, healthy, moving and focusing more on the sensuality in man's body as well as showing the fragility, the pain, the crying or simply the moment of uncertainty,' she said.
Roos, with her classic approach to drawing, sees the body as a landscape that is always changing through light, the movement of muscles and emotions.
'I know that these days we are so familiar with flat images, such as television and digital photos. We see this as realism, but humans have two eyes so we can see roundness and we see space,' the artist said, explaining her reason for using conventional medium of drawing to explore the concept of the body; as opposed to the more commonly found new digital media.
'I think that for me, it's much richer, transforming the beauty captured by the brain to fix the view from two eyes into one image through drawing.'
Roos said the depiction of man in her drawing was not in the style of the 'revenge-generation', as her mother's generation had back in the 60s, but to keep portraying man in a vulnerable way.
'I come from the generation after feminism, where I do not have to fight for equality. I do not have to picture men in sexual way to be considered equal to male artists,' she said.
Her work, she said, can be considered as political contemporary art from the perspective of certain communities and places.
'I also think that it's necessary for artists to rethink society. I fully support political art but I do not see my work as such,' she said.
'But in a certain context, my work can be considered as political art. One example, when I had a show in Madras, India there was a demonstration, with protesters carrying signboards saying 'sex is no art'. In a context where nudity is forbidden, my work becomes contemporary art, even political.'
During her stay in Bali, Roos conducted research on its culture, something she has done in every country she has previously lived in, such as India.
'I work in different countries and every time I try to do as much research as possible. For me, it's a way to know the country I live in. In Bali, I work with Balinese dancers, especially Legong dancers from Peliatan. I found reviews of their very geometric dance. I reuse it in my drawings. But in the end, I work with people and people have backgrounds that are universal.'
She also acknowledged late German artist Kathe Kollwitz, whose works in the first half of the 20th century offered eloquent and searing accounts of the human condition and the tragedy of war, as an influence for her work.
Although her works are visually different, Roos said that she has at least borrowed Kollwitz's spirit in her work, especially for basic techniques and emotions. 'I love her very strong emotional expressions. Her dramatic drawings have a strong relationship with the time she lived in and what she experienced,' she said.
She may not have witnessed the tragedy of war that provided Kollwitz with a deep subject matter that inspired her development into a renowned artist, but Roos works hard to be herself ' an honest artist who specializes in a classical European art style with a touch of local culture while giving people a different viewpoint of the landscape of the body.
Between The Lines exhibition
By Noella Roos
Runs until July 30
Cemara 6 Galeri
Jl.HOS. Cokroaminoto 9-11 Jakarta
' Photos courtesy of Noella Roos/Ruth Onduko
