CATHARINA VAN EETVELDE

Catharina van Eetvelde explores both the expressive and the stylising power of the line. Starting from a strict drawing of the line and an economical use of colour, she composes particular universes of forms with a compositorial, technological and narrative complexity of their own.

The forceful layering of her work can partly be attributed to its serial procedure (Jam, 2005; Glu, 2007). The series functions as a system, as an organising unit. It provides the semantic structure and determines the elaboration of an image in a drawing, installation or animation and the possible correlation with other ‘systems’ such as music (Glu, 2007) or the spoken word (Cruise, 2002-03).

In the present exhibition Catharina van Eetvelde sets out to analyse the structural system and the methodology of her own medium. She enters a meta-level that is not unfamiliar to her work: “Il y a comme un fil rouge: le sujet même du dessin, je dessine sur le dessin. Je le pousse à son exrème, je le teste, je vois ce que le medium peut supporter et porter.” (“There is, as it were, a connecting theme: the subject of the drawing, I draw on the drawing, I drive it to extremes, I put it to the test, I search for what the medium can take and bear”).

Van Eetvelde’s drawings demonstrate the topicality and relevance of the art of drawing in a digitised world. The current development of the medium shows itself not in pixels or vectors, but in CTRL-Z, a computer key that executes ‘undo and redo’. The implication of an endless and invisible series of operations touches the essence, the process and the systematic nature of an age-old discipline, and thus changes it irrevocably.

The central concept of this exhibition rests on the ERG metaphor.

ERG = ergänzen (to complete)

ERG = unit of energy

ERG = wind-swept sand dunes, continuously changing under the impact of the wind.

ERG highlights the central question: How can formal organisation be achieved when the parameters are variable? By using CTRL-Z?

On four screens the same movement is shown, from different points of view, each following their own rhythm. ERG looks spontaneous, associative, an écriture automatique, but the knowledge of CTRL-Z contradicts this. The four animations will be shown simultaneously in the Centre Pompidou in Paris, as part of the permanent collection and will be put on shown during ‘elles@pompidou3’.

Courtesy Galerie Greta Meert