Fissures in the art of Belinda de Veer, at the Archeological Museum

Belinda de Veer opened a solo exhibition at the museum on December 4th, in the presence of friends, family members and fans. She was supported in the endeavor by Prins Bernhard CultuurFunds, a Dutch nonprofit supporting artists in the Caribbean.

The effort is to be admired. It is a sizeable show with over 20 canvases, in mixed media, acrylic paint and oil, many pieces integrate bits of photography, and stitching. Personally I do not remember a show of this caliber in Aruba in a long time, and at this point, so that curator Elvis Lopez doesn’t crucify me, we have to add that indeed, Atelier 89, has been hosting regular group exhibitions, and keeps the flame of culture, stoked.

The location of Belinda’s show is appropriate. She is a digger, a human archeologist. She uncovers memories, and the people who once populated our lives and are now gone.

The name of the exhibition, Fissures in the art of Belinda De Veer, really means the cracks and losses in the LIFE of Artist Belinda De Veer, having lost a beloved sister and mother in recent years.

I walked around the paintings with Belinda, in the fully restored historic museum. All of them deal with the waning of life, the fading, diminishing and finally disappearing materials. Life is a promise, she writes, we are led to believe in our own resilience, but then things diminish, and decrease.

The paintings tell the story of a tightly knit, multi-generational family, a revered aging patriarch, a beautiful departed mother, a sadly missed sister, a tattered childhood doll, people and objects that were once vibrant, now vanished, yet by the virtue of being gone, they live forever in our memory, in photographs and in works of art. They become immortal, by declining.

A series of canvases follows that Memento Mori and Vanitas theme, which was a common genre in the 16th and 17th century, In Europe, where the painting demonstrated the futility of pleasure, and the certainty of death. Belinda twists and tangles body parts together, in runny colors, like the world is disintegrating before our eyes. A bit pessimistic, but certainly attests to the truth.

A portrait of Belinda’s mom as a young woman shows a deep crack in her elegant skirt, again in runny colors, like the painting is melting, along with her life.

Portraits of Mon & Dad as toddlers, in a streaked universe, looking for clarity.

Heads of dolls, perfectly beautiful, dissolving into columns of paint.

Belinda playing the piano for her sister, as riverlets of paint threaten to slip off the canvas.

Belinda’s palate of colors is very appealing, never pure color, always thinned out, transparent, and layered. She has great reds, blues and ochres.

About Belinda: Born in Aruba, she lived and studied in the US for seven years, where she obtained a doctor’s degree in pharmacy. Upon her return to the island her interest in visual arts and music peaked, and she followed various workshops at Ateliers 89. The workshops were given by famed teachers from the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam and it didn’t take long before Belinda transformed her home into an atelier, and a music studio, with room for her beloved piano which she has been playing since the age of nine.

In October 2012 Belinda presented a solo exhibition titled Paraiso den Desierto, Paradise in the Desert, officially opened by the Minister of Economic Affairs, Social Affairs and Culture.  One of the pieces exhibited was a sculpture made of copper cables from the now-defunct oil refinery. The copper cables were amongst various recycled materials Belinda obtained from abandoned sites. Belinda favored the green oxidation of copper and the fragile and brittle look it projects, despite its durability and strength.

In honor of her solo exhibition, then, she also created a collection of copper jewelry, to always remind the wearer and admirer of the piece, the importance of change and sustainability, important for the survival of the world, as we know it.

Visit the exhibition, you will have lots to think about.

 

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December 09, 2021
Rona Coster