About artists
The best way to learn about artists is by looking thoughtfully at their works.
Of course there is no absolute way to interpret the creative expressions of the autonomous artists. What we notice and observe is a reflection of our own experiences and personalities. What we see and recognize is that what we already know. And what touches us is often that what we have felt before.
Geesje du identifies with the masters of fine-art who worked during the first half of the 20th century. Before the turn of the century they had already started to question the rules and the authorities in their own disciplines.
The death and destruction of two bloody World Wars and the effects of the industrial revolution made many artists broaden their horizon. They subsequently started searchings for ways to express the horrors and the devastation and to speak the truth about reality.
About education
“We already know all about you being pretty, Geesje. Why don’t you try to depict your bad sides in the self-portraits you make?”
This remark was made in 1994 by Gouke Notebomer. This beloved and respected teacher worked for many years at the Academy of Fine Arts, ‘Minerva’, in Groningen, the Netherlands.
By nature is Geesje an open and spontaneous person. Growing up in a dysfunctional family changed that dramatically. But her inquiring mind did not suffer and she developed a keen eye for the workings of human organizations.
Autonomous artists
About autonomy is said that it includes our ability to consider and ask whether we do, in fact, identify with our desires and frustrations or whether we might wish to override them.
So artists must learn to understand the different sources of the yearnings and the discontents that determine their personal lives. And how these common trades influence human life as a whole. Only then can an artist be free to choose what and how to express. To proof their independence, the artists have to be transparent and expose themselves.
No lord nor master, material or otherwise, is given permission to interfere without prior consent. In order to get recognition and appreciation however, the autonomous artist has no choice than to rely on others. After all, it’s the others who have to attribute significants to their efforts.
The church is an ancient client. After that came the academia, art-historians and cultural-philosophers, who authorized themselves to judge and value the products of the arts. But do these institutions of soft science and big money really have the stamina that it takes to do the job properly?
Nowadays the new media have taken on the task. The problem is however that these innovated tools seem to do nothing else but to seduce, persuade and force us to self-identify with our desires and frustrations.
Names in numbers
Read more about the ancestry and the origins of the artist and her names.
Captains of the clouds
Unaware of the directions given to Geesje to explore her dark sides by Gouke Notebomer, an other teacher at the academy of fine arts made the following comment: “Your paintings look like you found them in the dumpster.”
Rubbish wasn’t the image Geesje was aiming for. After all, we like our ‘bad sides’ to be significant. Read more
The team
Making the many aspects of our personality and character work as one team is not an easy task. Even if we don’t know all there is to know about the ourselves, good teamwork can still be done.
A secret garden
Read more about the childhood years of this artist and how she was shaped and formed by her upbringing.
Naked expression
There’s a world of difference between expressions of a creative nature and of those with a destructive purpose.
In order to balance the two, artists have a tendency to exhibit auto-destructive behavior.
