BEFORE THE BIRDS WENT QUIET

Before the Birds Went Quiet, a solo exhibition by Karin Hoogesteger.

You are very welcome at the opening on Sunday 14 September 3 – 5 pm.

The central theme in Karin Hoogesteger’s work is the eternal tension between culture and nature. The exhibition Before the Birds Went Quiet goes back to the past, to the era of the ‘New World’ – a time of promise and appropriation, of flora and violence. A lost paradise resounds; a world once considered pristine is entered and mapped. But with the urge to explore also came domination. In the name of civilization and progress, landscapes were conquered, rewritten and exported. The figure Mundi Victor, Latin for conqueror of the world, is a silent presence in this exhibition. Not as a portrait, but as a system. Mundi Victor symbolizes man who wants to possess everything, including nature but also others.

The paintings depict a lush world in blending layers. Over floral tapestry patterns grows decayed nature from exotic places, often jungles. The paint is watery and soft, the images fragile, like memories slowly fading away. Another history also lurks in the paint; of ancient carpets that tell of luxury, power and money. These histories also echo in the meters-high painted carpet, where concrete representations of domination and violence merge with the visual splendor of ornament and décor.

Central to the exhibition is a series of small works centered around an antique cigar tin titled Mundi Victor, from the Eindhoven tobacco manufacturer Mignot & de Block, founded in 1857. In addition to its Dutch branches the firm also had a tobacco plantation and factory in Jogjakarta, in the former Dutch East Indiës.