Aafke Bennema | Clusters, gaps, crumbs
13/02–01/03/2024
Paintings and rope works by Aafke Bennema give the impression of liquid processes that arise and flow away. They seem to consist of unstable elements that have to do with an undertone that sounds in our current society. According to sociologist Zygmunt Bauman, these modern times are fluid, flexible and uncertain. Everything is constantly changing.
This time is fragmentary and depends on short projects that hardly form a coherent whole. Bennema's work relates to this realization. She does not give an opinion, nor a solution or a future perspective. It is a guiding idea that concerns her strongly on all levels (current events, life philosophy, work) and that offers her clarity. It is a guiding principle that also takes shape in her works. This changeability takes on different shapes and dimensions, both in the painted work and in the more abstract rope works.
The rope and textile works arise as a constant succession of various constructions. The process of creation is observable in the work. Countless successive, logical and illogical decisions are made, with everything in constant contact with previously completed parts. Sometimes they literally move along. Both the creation of the work and the result are fluid in this way: all elements constantly influence each other and are in motion.
Aafke Bennema tries to capture natural processes that are erratic and unpredictable. Yet each work has its own logic and its own method of origin. She directs her own intuition. She uses old techniques such as knotting, weaving and embroidery in rope and textile works. Bennema finds it fascinating to use these techniques and materials and give them a new shape and meaning. The more she works with this, the more expressive possibilities she discovers. For example, tribal figures may emerge in some works and merge into modernist fragments on the spot. And so in her oeuvre organic forms, landscape parts and more abstract expressions coexist.
Aafke Bennema relates to the world around her and understands the world through self-created systems, which are expressed in her works. In these systems, principles of order and chaos alternate. Harmonic and dissonant parts can form connections with each other. Loose parts and open fragments with holes can form an equal part of the structure and composition of the work.
Aafke Bennema studied at the Art Academy in Arnhem, Netherlands at the Free Art department. Since the mid-1990s she has been making paintings that are painted in a graphic manner. Initially portraits in strongly contrasting colours, lines and dots. The background was then separated from this subject in the form of landscape/dynamic subjects. For a number of years, Aafke Bennema has also been making work in rope and textiles. From a curiosity about working with shape and color in a different way.
