Galerie Dennis Cooper presents … Harma Heikens

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‘For the past few years, Dutch artist Harma Heikens has been drawing on subjects from the edge of our consumer society. She reveals that which is not usually clearly visible in a world that is obsessed by a flawless exterior. It’s the flip side of things that matters to her, as illustrated by an early drawing of “bambi’, not cute at all but throwing up violently. This hidden truth is in the distortion of what should be beautiful and whole, like the bust of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty, her perfect skin covered in sores (or are they zits she’s scratched open?). Heikens takes a sardonic pleasure in tranforming clichés, by undermining the traditional meaning of the toy figures and dolls we know from childhood. Their hidden horrors become visible. She does this with gusto and imagination, and with a lot of conviction. Her latest work is a good example of this. It refers to a consumerism gone haywire, in which people as well as things have a market value. Youth and beauty, though transitory, have become commodities that only the happy few can afford to buy.

‘Harma Heikens wants to show us that all around us monsters are reaching out to youthful beauty in order to feed on it, hoping to regenerate what has been lost. They refuse to believe that there are things that aren’t actually for sale. The work touches on the age-old theme of the battle between thanatos and eros as it manifests itself in modern society. Heikens, with her playful yet forceful imagery holds up a mirror to us all.’ — Margriet Kruyver, aeroplastics contemporary

‘To compare and contrast cute with confrontational is a typical and all too simple response when observing one of Harma Heikens’ near life-size sculptures for the first time. True, they are confrontational but the larger than life charm of Harma’s arrangements are powerfully thought-provoking allegories; Her description of her work is precise and understated. “I’m not into telling people that they see things the ‘wrong’ way,” says the Netherland artist. “When I make a sculpture of, say, a Latin-American or Asian looking child in horrible circumstances it is perceived as social criticism, but when I make a sculpture of a white child in a similar situation it is perceived as apocalyptic. That doesn’t feel good and it is confrontational in itself (for whoever wants to see it), but there’s no way of avoiding it. The images I work with sort of pre-exist in people’s minds. It works the same way for me.”

‘And therein lies one of the most appealing aspects of Heikens’ work. It’s not a soapbox stance, but she doesn’t resort to ’leaving it all up to the viewer’ either. What we make of it is an amalgamation of artist intention and our own built-in perceptions culled from our own reference banks.

‘Accessorized with familiar common-place objects these sculptures speak to us using our own universal language: a trash bag, a soda can, a sweater emblazoned with branded apparel. Even their cuteness is part of that language. It coaxes an examination of the debasement of our culture, our societies, our place in time, how far we’ve come – or regressed.’ — Annie Owens

 

Further

Harma Heikens Official Website
HH @ Witzenhausen Gallery
‘Paradise Lost: The Works of Harma Heikens’
The Malformed Kitsch of Harma Heikens’
HH interviewed @ Castle Magazine
‘tweeenentwintig beelden: harma heikens’

 

Extras

Noorderzon doet geen aangifte na dreigement

HARMA HEIKENS Firestarter unboxing by Toy Qube at My Silk Screen Print Shop

 

Interview

 

q)How did you get started making art?

a)I’ve been making things as long as I remember, but didn’t think that had anything to do with “art”. I always wanted to be an artist, though; I imagined that I would be painting large abstract canvasses when I grew up.

q)How would you describe your art?

a)Don’t know.Conceptual cartoonism? I hope it’s sort of direct. The process of making these things is rather time-consuming, I do four or five pieces a year.

q)Where do you get the inspiration for your art?

a)The newspapers, b-movies, t.v.commercials and everyday life.

q)What other artists inspire you?

a)Writers like for instance Elfride Jelinek, Michel Houllebecq and Douglas Coupland, grafic novelists like Charles Burnes and Daniel Clowes, film directors like Lucas Moodysson and a lot of other visual artists, too many to mention, not always the ones that make work simular to mine, it is more about an attitude.

q)What is your main medium of choice?

a)Sculpture and installation. The sculpture is mostly made of light-weight synthetics (all water-based and friendly to the environnement).

q)What are you working on now?

a)An installation in collaboration with a poet. It is about consumerism and child-prostitution.

q)Almost every artist has a special “mission”, a message they want to deliver or actions they want to provoke with their work. What’s your mission?

a)That’s a tough one. If I knew what the exact message was I don’t think there would be a need to make the work anymore … But, If I must, shortly: The message would be that life’s a bitch, and my mission to sort out who or what’s to blame. Without any result so far.

q)Your artworks often feature children in a context of violence, dirt and sex – they don’t fail in provoking unease and disgust in the viewer. How were your personal feelings during the working process?

a)I can get emotional or upset, but not all of the time. A single piece takes several months to make so that would be rather unpleasant. Sometimes I enjoy working on it in a malicious kind of way, but mostly I’m preoccupied with formal and technical issues.

q)Do those images come from personal experiences (e.g. travels to third world countries) or are they a product of your imagination / from watching the news / from listening to stories from friends/acquaintances?

a)It depends; some works are inspired by watching the news, some by disaster movies, some by everyday life: You don’t have to travel to a third world country to see people suffer. But mostly the images arise from the working process itself. It’s not just about what you see, but what it stands for. I’m always looking for images that can also serve as a metaphor. And of course the themes I choose orginate in personal experience, like with any other artist.

 

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