Fleur van Dodewaard
Black Grass / Love Letters
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Kröller-Müller Museum
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Address:
Houtkampweg 6
6731 AW Otterlo
In Zwart Gras/ Liefdesbrieven,Fleur van Dodewaard (Haarlem, 1983) presents work on paper that she created over a period of a year in various places around the world: in her home country of the Netherlands, in Japan and in Arles, France. The drawings are combined with sculptures, which are the result of the artist’s encounter with the Kröller-Müller Museum.
‘What you can do when standing in front of my work is the same thing I do while making it: breathe. Breathe the work in as you breathe the world in – and breathe yourself out again.’
‘I take a sheet of paper and a pencil and draw a simple shape with one line’, says Van Dodewaard. ‘It is that line, the evidence of my moving hand, that says “I am here, now”.’ From that here and now, the artist invariably enters into a relationship with another person that transcends time and distance.
Van Dodewaard describes her drawings as love letters. A selection from over 200 drawings she made in 2024 is on display here. Almost every day she ‘wrote’ these love letters, composed of illegible characters in coloured pencil and black ink. She addressed them to her own loved ones, but also to the observer of her work and to the world.
Cover Image: Fleur van Dodewaard, WITH EACH AND EVERY FINGER (BLACK GRASS / LOVE LETTERS) – MET ELKE VINGER (ZWART GRAS / LIEFDESBRIEVEN), 2024