NYAB Event - Wieteke Heldens “Painting, Painthing and Paintthing (the verbs)”

Wieteke Heldens “Painting, Painthing and Paintthing (the verbs)”

Flux Factory

This event has ended.

“I am pleased to present my second solo show at Flux Factory: “Painting, Painthing and Paintthing, (the verbs).” I will show new work made during my third residency, but also look back at work made during my other two residencies in 2011 and 2012. I will reflect on them, resize them, give them new titles, or destroy them. In 2011 my show was about the “Paintings, Painthings and Paintthings.” Now it is about the “Painthing, Painthing and Paintthing (the verbs).” Giving old work a new meaning by changing the size and the weight of a painting, by giving a painthing a new title or by destroying paintthings that are not functional anymore. I am also painting new work, painthing new work and paintthing new work. I make paintings, painthings and paintthings. Often I tried to make my last painting but I never succeeded. I am consistently inconsistent and obsessively need the canvas to be able to understand life. In my work I use everything around me but turn these personal anecdotes into abstract concepts. In my drawings I relentlessly repeat the same deed over and over again. I would like to be like Hanna Darboven or On Kawara, but I am not. There is often a conflict in my work that needs to be solved and that’s why I can’t stop painting.”

Wieteke Heldens (1982, Ottersum) graduated in 2007 at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague. Followed by a 2 year post-graduate in The Hague named DNA. During this time she worked in Chongqing, China at the Sichuan Fine Arts institute. Heldens exhibited in the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague and internationally in Switzerland, Belgium, France, Denmark and USA. In 2011 and 2012 Heldens was an artist in residence at Flux Factory in New York. In 2013 Heldens won the Royal prize for painting. She works and lives in New York and The Hague.