Ellert Haitjema: "Act Without Words" - recent mixed media work
26 September - 31 October 2015
Ellert Haitjema is an Amsterdam-based visual artist who frequently travels to distant places in pursuit of inspiration and new challenges, often culminating in projects involving interventions in public spaces. He also makes independent exhibitions of his sculpture and photography, both in museums and galleries. In his sculptural work, he composes and arranges unlikely objects into a whole, which requires a specific poetic sensibility as well as a sympathy for discarded common materials, such as a shoe, a door, a piece of cloth, a household sponge. The surfaces of his work bear the marks of use and re-use. For him, the idea is of essence, no less than form, workmanship, technique and material. As Edwin Jacobs wrote, "The unlocking of the public's observation of things occurs not through a daydreamer or a fantasist but through someone who reorders form and color out of sharp observation instead of vague representation." In his photography, Haitjema aims to reveal unexpected creativity and inventiveness in everyday situations. This inspired his 2010 image-essay "Haphazard" published in conjuction with his exhibition of the same name in the Museum de Pont in Tilburg. Haitjema's love of humor, irony and strange coincidences, unusual colors and language are chief ingredients of his work. Concurrent with this show, Haitjema will be the inaugural exhibitor at the Biederberg|Finders Project Space, Laurierstraat 53, Amsterdam, with a multimedia installation, opening on 3 October at 16:00. For more information see www.biederbergfindersprojects.com.
Ellert Haitjema, No Room For Doubt, 2015
Photo on aluminium, 30 x 35 cm