Suus Kooijman

Suus Kooijman (1960) was educated at the HKU. In addition to painting on the flat surface, she is looking for possibilities in which she can work spatially in her paintings. In her work, rhythm, space and matter are brought together into a unity for which the word painting does not adequately cover the meaning. She herself prefers to speak of wall objects or reliefs. The core of her work is simplicity and structure. The wall reliefs are made according to a unique process. Polyether parts are coated with a mixture of, among other things, beeswax, resin and pigment.

Suus’ works are mainly made of beeswax. She builds it up layer by layer. She does not immediately have an image in her head of what it will be like, but works from her feelings and allows the work to develop organically. In this way she continues to surprise not only herself but also the viewer. She puts it on a block of wood that has itself been layered to enhance the layering of her work. Her work is coated, making it shock-resistant, the work can also be hung in the sun. The warm beeswax, the pigments, and the layers build up to a representation of which Suus himself often does not know where it will go. At least, in the beginning. Sometimes it takes a while for the performance to show itself. Everything hides in a background which, when she scrapes off the layers, brings out an image. Does a landscape, a field, a person appear? Suus works through the layers and is amazed time and again.

During the process, she is able to steer more and intervene in the matter. A landscape that presents itself to us often carries unknown meanings. She tries to discover and investigate those meanings and leaves room for the other. Only Suus knows what ultimately takes place in the bottom layer of these images.