Streaming is a good way to characterize Gertrud D’s work, at least that is what first comes to my mind. An incessant flow of forms and colours, a river of movement, waves of curls and circles, a maelstrom of attraction and repulsion, a galaxy of suns, moons and stars, dust and spirals, explosions, vortices. This movement is not confined to her paintings, though. A similar avalanche seems to permanently reign in Gertrud’s atelier, a 300 square meter loft in old Amsterdam, right above her spacious living quarters. Hundreds of canvasses stand four rows thick against the walls. The artist arranges and rearranges them all the time, to keep her company, to talk to her, to talk about them to her professional guests. Now she picks this, then that work, gauging their conversation, both with each other and with her. She hates to give them a final place on the wall, to not move them time and again. They have to be hung and rehung, put into different standing positions, in an arc, criss-cross, at angles, where they can debate, conflict, take up each time a new energy. Until at last for a bit of a protracted period, they come at rest in a balanced network of colours and volumes, in a harmony where tension seems momentarily resolved. Such rest points occur in the studio, but also in various places in her home downstairs, interacting with carefully selected furnishings, forming curious installations as backdrops for the numerous social occasions taking place there, in a half public, half private atmosphere. Gertrud’s relationship to her works is engaging, testing, challenging. A work is hardly ever finished, and when it is, it is often only temporarily so. Any canvas may show a corner or a side that opens itself up for further development by yet another retouching, by adding a layer, or even by removing something. Likewise unfixed are the titles of her works. They can well remain anonymous, or once defined can change over time. A work already baptized may, over the years, be felt to call for a better definition, depending on the artist’s mood, or in relation to later work, with which they may well turn out to form a series. Everything flows, nothing remains the same, a feast of impermanence – a true poetics of our times.
Where does this ineradicable fluidity come from, was it always there, where does it go, what does it mean?
A holistic approach was present right from the start of Gertrud’s artistic career, in theatre during the second half of the sixties. Later in her own company, Groep Gertrud D (1985-1988), she not only produced or directed, but, significantly, also both created the costumes and took upon herself the design of set and stage. A sense of performance, an echo of the fascinations in her previous career stages, has never been far away from Gertrud’s later visual work. It is present both in the process of creation, in the physical engagement with shapes and energized light, through pigments on canvas or paper, sometimes though a haiku-like choreography combining one broad swoosh with one contrasting colour field and one sharp line. Inside the works, its presence can be felt in the awareness of the picture frame. What the artist has depicted is being performed within the confines of the edges. It does not continue beyond them. In her later work, perhaps not coincidentally, the frames are sublimated into the work itself, their broad decorative surfaces enlarging it, or carrying a contrapuntal design to it, while effectively isolating the main area from the outside world as in a framed theatre stage.
Since Gertrud started her paint work, in the mid-nineties, she showed an interesting and, in its way, remarkable development. At first her engagement was definitely, in her own words, figurative, concentrating on “portraits”. A simple, radiant kind of female half bust, which echoes a Madonna motive, well known throughout the grand European painting tradition. Yet it seems incidentally to flower into a preoccupation with decorative background, the play of surfaces and textures reminding one, if anything, of Gustav Klimt. This penchant for backdrop and context would take on a life of its own to never quite leave Gertrud’s work. It is the intense working of the surface, applying different techniques on it, from layering with various kinds of oils and acrylics, to matting and stippling, that on a micro level shapes Gertrud’s artisan signature. It’s all about skin, which takes on its own life.
In addition to being engrossed in material and surface treatment experiments, in the ensuing two decades she successfully investigated the nature of monochromes, the application of dripping/splattering techniques, the performance of minimalist exercises (“Japanese rhythms”) and creating larger-than-life lyrical expressionist works, respectively. It is in this last, most prominent stage where Gertrud arguably finds her true signature, combining a deep-felt skin sensitivity and expressive lyricism with a message about movement, life, and creativity – in which some may discern echoes of anthroposophical notions.
Much of Gertrud’s earlier experiences are subsumed and can be easily detected in these large recent canvasses. Still present is the physical built-up of the ground, recalling the experiments with the earlier monochrome planes. With these, she tried to answer questions about the nature of painting, “How blue is blue?”, while at the same time making the paint visible in its corporeal state. The oily paste, once applied generously, will crackle, bubble, ripple. The paint itself becomes a presence, made itself felt by its material heaviness alone. Gertrude’s canvasses thus gain an additional dimension, call it life, a living skin. This is especially so whenever an earlier phase of a work is being eradicated, or improved, by overpainting in white. The ground is still there, its relief visible, but as in a palimpsest brought to rest yet carrying a new drawing. This way the works grow with the artist, while tracing their own history as faces marked by time, with pasts being detectable on close inspection only.
A crucial moment in Gertrude’s development was a short stay, in de mid-nineties, in the California studio of Sam Francis (1923-1994). Being allowed to paint in his space and using his very materials, brushes and pigments, she was deeply impressed. It is this remarkable older artist’s abstract expressionist works, in which he fused Jackson Pollock’s action painting and dripping techniques with a sensitivity inspired by Japanese minimalism, that got Gertrude started on both the exploration of linear drawing and large, abundantly moving, multi-coloured paintings throbbing with life. Since then, a steady retreat can be discerned in her paintings. Shapes are now increasingly being separated from backgrounds, contracting almost into solids: suggesting a sun, the moon, a womb, a homunculus. The occasional application referred to above, sometimes in repetitive stages, of layers of white, add to this effect.
No art reflection is complete without taking into consideration intention. What is the artist’s aim, or what has it been – either self-avowed or attributed? Gertrud’s case is extraordinary. In earlier interviews, as in several in-depth tv documentaries, she underscores the importance for her of the physical process of engagement, with brush, oil and acrylic, on paper or linen. Painting thus acquires the quality of a joyous movement, “a dance of my soul”, with themes, shapes, colour shades and compositional decisions being discovered and made on the spot. The artist playfully lets the work take shape by itself, only to later interfere in a more director-like function – a hallmark of the mid-20th-century American abstract expressionist movement. However that may be, the end result of Gertrud’s works may sometimes be as surprising to the artist as to anyone else. Lewis Carroll would have been delighted. Knowing this may help the observer appreciate the sometimes highly decorative aspects of her work. But at the same time it will keep us away from all too close readings of the particulars, and will instead gently nudge us to trust in the overall impression each work may give. More Gestalt than detail.
Gertrud’s work does emphatically not address the topical issues of today, political, religious, ideological or otherwise. Instead, both in their formal aspects and in the process-focus of their creation, her work seems to be content to refer to experiments and experiences of a previous generation. Yet it is perhaps precisely by being somewhat isolated, and gaining traction especially in the context of the artist’s own studio and living quarters which they turn into massive Gesammtkunstwerke, that her work may offer an oasis of timeless vitality. Gertrud’s take on lyrical expressionism is a counterpoint against the whirlwind of our times – paradoxically by embodying movement to an almost impossibly high degree, in each work, between the works, and in the relation of the artist to them. It this respect, her work does echo our times. Everything flows.
Dr Riemer R. Knoop
Where does this ineradicable fluidity come from, was it always there, where does it go, what does it mean?
A holistic approach was present right from the start of Gertrud’s artistic career, in theatre during the second half of the sixties. Later in her own company, Groep Gertrud D (1985-1988), she not only produced or directed, but, significantly, also both created the costumes and took upon herself the design of set and stage. A sense of performance, an echo of the fascinations in her previous career stages, has never been far away from Gertrud’s later visual work. It is present both in the process of creation, in the physical engagement with shapes and energized light, through pigments on canvas or paper, sometimes though a haiku-like choreography combining one broad swoosh with one contrasting colour field and one sharp line. Inside the works, its presence can be felt in the awareness of the picture frame. What the artist has depicted is being performed within the confines of the edges. It does not continue beyond them. In her later work, perhaps not coincidentally, the frames are sublimated into the work itself, their broad decorative surfaces enlarging it, or carrying a contrapuntal design to it, while effectively isolating the main area from the outside world as in a framed theatre stage.
Since Gertrud started her paint work, in the mid-nineties, she showed an interesting and, in its way, remarkable development. At first her engagement was definitely, in her own words, figurative, concentrating on “portraits”. A simple, radiant kind of female half bust, which echoes a Madonna motive, well known throughout the grand European painting tradition. Yet it seems incidentally to flower into a preoccupation with decorative background, the play of surfaces and textures reminding one, if anything, of Gustav Klimt. This penchant for backdrop and context would take on a life of its own to never quite leave Gertrud’s work. It is the intense working of the surface, applying different techniques on it, from layering with various kinds of oils and acrylics, to matting and stippling, that on a micro level shapes Gertrud’s artisan signature. It’s all about skin, which takes on its own life.
In addition to being engrossed in material and surface treatment experiments, in the ensuing two decades she successfully investigated the nature of monochromes, the application of dripping/splattering techniques, the performance of minimalist exercises (“Japanese rhythms”) and creating larger-than-life lyrical expressionist works, respectively. It is in this last, most prominent stage where Gertrud arguably finds her true signature, combining a deep-felt skin sensitivity and expressive lyricism with a message about movement, life, and creativity – in which some may discern echoes of anthroposophical notions.
Much of Gertrud’s earlier experiences are subsumed and can be easily detected in these large recent canvasses. Still present is the physical built-up of the ground, recalling the experiments with the earlier monochrome planes. With these, she tried to answer questions about the nature of painting, “How blue is blue?”, while at the same time making the paint visible in its corporeal state. The oily paste, once applied generously, will crackle, bubble, ripple. The paint itself becomes a presence, made itself felt by its material heaviness alone. Gertrude’s canvasses thus gain an additional dimension, call it life, a living skin. This is especially so whenever an earlier phase of a work is being eradicated, or improved, by overpainting in white. The ground is still there, its relief visible, but as in a palimpsest brought to rest yet carrying a new drawing. This way the works grow with the artist, while tracing their own history as faces marked by time, with pasts being detectable on close inspection only.
A crucial moment in Gertrude’s development was a short stay, in de mid-nineties, in the California studio of Sam Francis (1923-1994). Being allowed to paint in his space and using his very materials, brushes and pigments, she was deeply impressed. It is this remarkable older artist’s abstract expressionist works, in which he fused Jackson Pollock’s action painting and dripping techniques with a sensitivity inspired by Japanese minimalism, that got Gertrude started on both the exploration of linear drawing and large, abundantly moving, multi-coloured paintings throbbing with life. Since then, a steady retreat can be discerned in her paintings. Shapes are now increasingly being separated from backgrounds, contracting almost into solids: suggesting a sun, the moon, a womb, a homunculus. The occasional application referred to above, sometimes in repetitive stages, of layers of white, add to this effect.
No art reflection is complete without taking into consideration intention. What is the artist’s aim, or what has it been – either self-avowed or attributed? Gertrud’s case is extraordinary. In earlier interviews, as in several in-depth tv documentaries, she underscores the importance for her of the physical process of engagement, with brush, oil and acrylic, on paper or linen. Painting thus acquires the quality of a joyous movement, “a dance of my soul”, with themes, shapes, colour shades and compositional decisions being discovered and made on the spot. The artist playfully lets the work take shape by itself, only to later interfere in a more director-like function – a hallmark of the mid-20th-century American abstract expressionist movement. However that may be, the end result of Gertrud’s works may sometimes be as surprising to the artist as to anyone else. Lewis Carroll would have been delighted. Knowing this may help the observer appreciate the sometimes highly decorative aspects of her work. But at the same time it will keep us away from all too close readings of the particulars, and will instead gently nudge us to trust in the overall impression each work may give. More Gestalt than detail.
Gertrud’s work does emphatically not address the topical issues of today, political, religious, ideological or otherwise. Instead, both in their formal aspects and in the process-focus of their creation, her work seems to be content to refer to experiments and experiences of a previous generation. Yet it is perhaps precisely by being somewhat isolated, and gaining traction especially in the context of the artist’s own studio and living quarters which they turn into massive Gesammtkunstwerke, that her work may offer an oasis of timeless vitality. Gertrud’s take on lyrical expressionism is a counterpoint against the whirlwind of our times – paradoxically by embodying movement to an almost impossibly high degree, in each work, between the works, and in the relation of the artist to them. It this respect, her work does echo our times. Everything flows.
Dr Riemer R. Knoop