Colour Fields

Claudy Jongsta

Art Room

The windows have been washed, the parquet floors polished and the walls hung with art: See All This welcomes you into its venue for the Colour Fields exhibition featuring unique works by Claudy Jongstra as well as numerous other artists. Amongst the artworks shown at the exhibition are Jongstra’s monumental Guernica de la Ecologia, her Guernica Studies and Gold Series. Alongside this special edition Art Room, we are launching our vibrant winter issue, a number dedicated to the enchanting effects of colour, to endless colour and flower fields, to our warm feelings towards red, yellow or blue: ‘Suppose I were to begin by saying that I had fallen in love with a colour.’

Fig 1. Claudy Jongstra, Guernica de la Ecologia, 2021, 360 x 790 cm. Courtesy Galerie Fontana, Amsterdam.

Curated by:
Nicole Ex and Sarah Knigge

Thanks to:
Studio Claudy Jongstra: Claudy Jongstra, Suzanna de Sitter, Claudia Busson, Anneleen Reitsma, Isaac Span, Annette Hoeben, Anke Riesenkamp, Emma Clarkson
Galerie Fontana Amsterdam: Joris Montens Vitra Netherlands: Muriël de Lange

Artists: Anton Corbijn, Maaike Gottschall, Bijoy Jain, Daniel Mullen, Isamu Noguchi, David Shrigley, Berend Strik

Photography and video: Inga Powilleit (studio and interior See All This), Jeroen Musch (Guernica), Gerrit Schreurs (Guernica Studies), Ronja de Kleine (weavings), Zora Ottink (video)

Installation: Esther Aniwaa, Maria Alvares, Rob van der Kuil, Martijn van den Hout
And more: Sainthill Lijsten, Klavertje Vijf Bloemen Haarlem, Galerie Manièra Brussels

Kassia St Clair, the Golden Thread<br />

‘Fabrics – man-made and natural – have changed, defined, advanced, and shaped the world we live in’

Fig 2. Guernica study no. 3

Fig 3. Guernica study no. 4

A day with Claudy Jongstra In the garden and studio

In Húns, Friesland, behind the rampart of foliage that separates the property from the bare grasslands, stand the modest white house with the coral red window frames, the outhouse with the cobalt blue door, the futuristic cellar and the historic greenhouse. Ten kilometres away, in Spannum, you’ll find the dyehouse as well as the work shed.

It is here where Claudy Jongstra builds an autarchic and ingenious system in which nothing stands alone but everything is part of something else. The way she expresses herself in her work – weaving and felting wool and silk into tactile landscapes – appears to be the foundation of her entire biotope: she weaves, felts and intertwines everything and everyone into a tangle of humans, animals and plants in the name of art.

But since she feels impatience in every fibre of her being and predicts that within twenty years both the craftsmanship and the plants with which textiles are naturally dyed will be extinct, making art for art’s sake is not enough for her. She wants to make a difference. Because she sees it happening before her eyes. The disappearance of people to pass craft on to. The disappearance of pigment plants that grew in the wild: woad, bindweed, comfrey, sorrel, St. John’s wort, yarrow, tansy, goldenrod, horsetail, and chamomile.

Her art must become a standard-bearer, be given a political voice, provide social cohesion, be a bell and a shout, and simultaneously be executed in cushioning, caressable, hopeful and comforting wool. A new movement is emerging: Artivism. And Claudy Jongstra is one of its pioneers. Her latest work shows through its size and prestige that she is serious: Guernica de la Ecologia (2021).

Guernica de la Ecologia (2021)

Fig 4. Claudy Jongstra, Guernica de la Ecologia, 2021, 360 x 790 cm. Courtesy Galerie Fontana, Amsterdam.

Claudy Jongstra, Guernica de la Ecologia (detail), 2021, wool, silk, walnut, onion skin, woad, and madder, 360 x 790 cm. Courtesy of Galerie Fontana, Amsterdam.

Fig 5. Claudy Jongstra, Guernica de la Ecologia (detail), 2021, wool, silk, walnut, onion skin, woad, and madder, 360 x 790 cm. Courtesy of Galerie Fontana, Amsterdam.

Nicole Ex in See All This #24

‘A new movement is emerging: Artivism. And Claudy Jongstra is one of its pioneers. Her latest work shows in its size and prestige that she is serious: Guernica de la Ecologia. A warning bell and a cry, but executed in soft, cuddly, hopeful and comforting wool.’

Guernica Studies

Picasso’s Guernica (1937) depicts the aftermath of the first carpet bombing in Europe on the Basque town of Guernica, carried out by German and Italian bombers during the Spanish Civil War, mostly killing women and children. It prompted Picasso to dip his brush into dull black, white and grey wall paint in his Parisian studio. It was this colourlessness in particular that struck Jongstra when, years ago, she saw the textile replicas of various tapestries, including the Guernica, at the Rockefeller estate outside New York.

Textile has been a messenger for centuries. It is a language, a bearer of meaning and symbolism. ‘I hope that in the warm materiality of my Guernica lies an invitation. An invitation to pay attention to the things that surround us’, says Claudy Jongstra in See All This Art Magazine.

In addition to the monumental Guernica de la Ecologia (360 x 790 metres), which is intended to continue on its travels — like Picasso’s Guernica — Jongstra has made a series of smaller works, Guernica Studies, which are available for sale. Made of wool and silk, coloured with walnut, onion peel, woad and madder from Jongstra’s botanical garden.