Statement
Painting is my primary medium, though in practice, I am a conceptual artist. I use abstract visual forms and processes to explore systems of meaning and states of mattering.
I combine the concept and rule of the algorithm and execute it through forms and compositions that are organic, self generating, and have the unmistakeable mark of the human hand. By creating conceptual order and structure within my works, I also create conditions for closure and completion. Each work creates and fulfills its own conditions; both my materials and I fulfill our designated roles in a calculated symbiosis.
My practice frequently involves the creation of rule-based systems specific to each work or series, and I regularly play with language in my titles so that they simultaneously hint at a meaning and destabilize a singular interpretation.
A seemingly chaotic world is met with distinctive order in a work that formulates its own ontology; and my own life is made sense of and translated through abstract concepts.
We often think of algorithms in the context of computing or mechanical precision; but in my practice I combine the concept and rule of the algorithm and execute it through forms and compositions that are organic, self generating, and have the unmistakeable mark of the human hand. My works may appear to mimic the disorder of the world around us, but in reality they challenge that chaos.
I am dealing with (chronic) illness most of my life and I am making work to survive. This results in working with unconventional materials, because the need to work is bigger than the need for the perfect material and the outcome or result.
Wieteke Heldens graduated from the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, in 2007. Heldens’ work has been shown internationally, including the Kunstmuseum Den Haag in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, Ireland, Denmark, South Korea, Japan, and the United States. She has also worked as an artist-in-residence in Chongqing, China and Turin, Italy. In 2013 Heldens won the Royal Award for Modern Painting in the Netherlands. She is a recipient of a Stipend for Established Artists of the Mondriaan Fund. Currently she is an Artist-in-Residence of the Ground Floor Program at ISCP, New York.
About “When Will The Matter Be Gone”: I often try to finish the material, in “When Will The Matter Be Gone” I try to finish the markers on the
but the marker never really runs out.
About “With Blue Content”: My use of unconventional materials is perhaps best demonstrated in my series I’m Sorry, No Content and
my more recent works on found and readily available paper such as medical bills, gallery checklists, and other consumer leaflets. In I am sorry, No Content, I drew in marker over all the creases on brown paper bags that had come with my Chinese take-out orders: bags which were emptied and devoid meaning or
purpose (content) once their seemingly singular objective had been met. The project was also an
illustration of my state of mind at the time: unhappy and lacking the preferred materials with which to
make my work; I felt I was creating work that had little meaning besides its own emptiness. In 2013,
everything changed when I had a heart attack, and it shifted my perspective on this series, amongst other
things. They now are titled With Content: a reflection of my gratitude to be alive, but also an
acknowledgment of the bags’ renewed purpose, substance, and meaning that was instilled in them the
moment I integrated them into my work
About “Of Course, Off Course”: Of Course, Off Course consists of two rectangular large-scale stretched canvases: one is placed upright
on the floor, bisecting and leaning atop the other which is hung on the wall in a skewed, roughly landscape orientation. Both canvases are monochromatic, gradients of black and gray that fade to the
cream of raw canvas. But the marker gives ink after every break and is only finished when it has lost its
point, which is ironically also the real point of the work itself. The title here too is also significant; a play on
two phrases that are compositionally similar and yet conceptually quite different. The work is the
manifestation of an unexpected route, Off Course: a tilted canvas, a marker whose purpose [point] is met
by losing its point [purpose]. And it is also a statement of the obvious, Of Course: contradicting the
unspoken yet rigid conventions of painting by acknowledging its weight and three dimensions, and
disrupting assumptions of symmetry.
About “No More Color”: And (Still No) More Color and Of Course, Off Course, also are based on a process of using
up a given material (this time, marker), but also address and refute the deceptive flatness of the canvas.
And (Still No) More Color documents my effort to deplete my markers of their ink; one at a time. The black
marker is used up on a small, stretched rectangular canvas that is the center portion of a massive, raw
sheet of canvas. The substantial peripheral parts of the canvas pucker and spill out to the left and right
displaying a grid of fading colors, breaking the illusion of the painting’s flatness. Previously unfavored
colors get their due recognition, taking up more space, and a painting that I had intended to demonstrate
the eventual loss and absence of color instead seems to show their stubborn persistence: a suitable
metaphor for life. The title, too, embodies this contradiction
About the “Legends”: The concept for Legends originated at a time when I was in intensive care, restricted to my bed, with
nothing to do except count colors—a pastime that in a way, created a key, or legend, for deciphering the
world immediately around me. The project has evolved into a series of paintings which document and
label by number the individual colors of paint, pen, marker, and other materials I have in my studio at any
given time. Each iteration of Legend tells its own story of a moment, and becomes the summation of one
corner of the world in its simplest elements. Some versions place the numbered colors in the un-gessoed
center of a canvas whose borders are precisely gessoed to create a subtle frame; and one made in the
days before the pandemic lockdown of 2020 is accompanied by an audio recording in which a
computerized voice documents the major local and world events that unfolded over the months when I
was unable to access my studio. Legend is also a document of my own persistence and will to live
following my time in the ICU: it’s a proof of my own survival and my role within each iteration.
About “It’s Like, You Know (non toxic)”: In this work, I have two goals to accomplish. My rules for "It's like, You Know (nontoxic)" are to clean the brushes and to fill up the canvas. The paint is made up of nontoxic pigments due to my pregnancy. The title plays with multiple meanings of the phrases "It's like" and "You Know". "It's like", which means the same, to be equal, to enjoy, to care for, and to desire. "You Know" is a substitution for something not to be said out loud or an idea for something that cannot be thought of at the present moment, and as a question which means, are you still listening or do you understand.
About “My last painting number 3”: I often try ty make my last painting, (pain thing) But I never succeed, This is number 3.
About My first non toxic painting number 3: This painting is made with all the pigments I could find that are proven to be non toxic. Every color has 3.14 gram of pigments and I finish that amount of color on the canvas. Also the size of the canvas is referring to the number pi: 169 x 141 cm ( 40th, 41st and 42 number behind the comma of the number pi, and 1st 2nd and 3rd number behind the comma from number pi)
Disability: I have Lupus, Antiphospholipid syndrome and Von Willebrand disease.
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