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Poetry, myth and metaphor create worlds



Was bleibet aber stiften die Dichter
Friedrich Hölderlin

Old themes and archaic forms are reshaped by contemporary artists. The drawings, paintings, sculptures and installations of Irène Prinsen show the influence of classical and Christian myth as a source of inspiration. The poetical and transcendental logic of this mythological universe creates a world of magic, mystery and fable. A world in its own right. A world which enables people to distance themselves for a moment from the daily grind, the drumbeat of the media, the clichés of the fashionable.

Drawing constitutes the key discipline within the body of Prinsen's work. It is essential to the process and forms the basis for developments. In drawing Prinsen follows the line in an endeavour to feel the form of things intuitively and shape an organic understanding of the world.

In steel sculpture and installations the drawing becomes autonomous. Using an oxyacetylene cutter as though it were a pencil or brush, Prinsen 'draws' her 'paintings' in the steel plate. Every line is turned into a ray of light whereas contours are transformed into patches of light. Wrought into the dense and dark material of thick steel plates the story takes wings in a lighter, parallel story of light shining through.

Prinsen started working as an artist in 1985 in the workshops of the Free Academy in The Hague and at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam(1987-1989). In the nineties Prinsen participated for a two year period in the post-academic workshops of the Jan van Eyck Academy in Maastricht (1994-1996).