Preventing the sharp from being sharp.

Imagine the decoration of your interior: you have made a critical (conscious) selection and arranged it all very well; it is not too full (which gives room to think) and everything has its own place. Let's say it looks cool and sharp... Than a very dear friend comes by, she is very excited because she has a very beautiful gift for you. When you unwrap the present you see right away that it is not your taste. Will you be hospitable towards the gift and give it a spot in your interior with the unavoidable consequence of making it look less sharp and directed?

Imagine the world of ideas in your head as an interior and a misfit idea comes by. Will you be hospitable and give it a spot in the middle of your own ideas and thoughts and see what it looks like, trying to wrap your head around it?

I discovered that wrapping around is part of my natural appreciation and taste: I love pliable things like fabrics, padding and flesh; jellyfish and creepers that need a construction to grow around, like decoration around a post. My taste is one of the soft approach and adaptability, which does not mean that I am hospitable to everything. To be honest: there is a secret disgust for the sharp, because I think sharp is about excluding, and exclusiveness... So I decided to be hospitable to the sharp in my style of the soft approach. And suddenly the drawing looks like preventing the sharp from being sharp: wrapping your head around the sharp is like a sheath around a sword.

Interview with Hudson, Feature Inc., New York

How did you get from drawing images to drawing words?

Earlier when I painted, the most difficult thing for me was the background, and especially the part in the middle away from the edges. Now I’m actually drawing that background itself. In the context of the drawing of words, that background becomes the space around and between the letters. For me it has to do with the urge to feel. It’s hard for me to feel in the middle (the average). That’s why I’ve pushed myself to the edges, and in doing so, have pushed the images away. But I didn’t want to lose the story, so instead of using images, I started using words. Letters are simply lines which, when organized into words, may contain a story or a meaning. I now literally stuff the space between the letters, and at the edges, light comes through - the edges become passages of light. I once read that God is the space between all things; maybe I am searching for God.

Why the words you’ve chosen?

They are words which seem to circle around in my head. I draw them to gain insight into what dwells inside of me: concerns, fears, and amazement. Insight for me has to do with putting things in the spotlight of my attention.

What’s with your limited palette? You have been using pink and orange for about ten years.

Using one color gives me the opportunity to experience the subtlety or nuance of that particular color. Especially pink - I can’t get enough of it. Maybe it has to do with a longing for saturation, not knowing when to stop, on and on, time and again in the hope of finally reaching a limit. The bulges in my work emerge from that insatiable feeling.

How does the repeated line function for you?

Actually it arose from a combination of reasons. When I was still painting, often I had difficulty getting down to work. I was troubled by a kind of laziness syndrome. If I bicycled past an office, I would think: at least people are getting some real work done. I longed for a painting neurosis that would make me keep on painting. When I was a child, I would draw and make things with my hands for hours on end without the slightest difficulty. At a certain moment, I decided to allow that joy of making things with one’s hands to enter into my work again. I searched for actions that I liked doing and finally hit upon the drawing of lines in an endless repetition. Also, I noticed it enabled me to create a much more spatial representation of things. This came close to what I imagined it would be like to work within a compulsive neurosis. Really. it is more of a meditative way of working. These two modes are closely related; maybe a neurosis is a failed longing for meditation.

Comments on the invisible?

I have the feeling that nothing is invisible if you really look carefully enough. I think many things may appear invisible because they are so subtle. I believe in the power of subtlety. Usually subtlety seems insignificant; it only becomes significant when you zoom in. That’s why I don’t have any problems with visualizing feelings like God, not knowing, amazement, soul, and the strange urge to feel in a new way about man and woman.

INTERVIEW WITH KINKE KOOI BY MIRJAM WESTEN

First published in Kinke Kooi, catalogue accompanying her one person exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Arnhem, The Netherlands, 1993.

Why your predilection for drawing?

Actually it arose from a combination of reasons. When I was still painting, often I had difficulty getting down to work. I was troubled by a kind of laziness syndrome. If I had bicycled past an office, I would think: there at least people are getting some real work done. I longed for a painting neurosis that would make me keep on painting. Like when I was a child; then I would draw and make things with my hands for hours on end without the slightest difficulty. At a certain moment, I decided to allow that joy of making things with one’s hands to enter into my work again. I searched for actions that I liked doing and finally hit upon the drawing of lines in an endless repetition. Also, I noticed it enabled me to create a much more spatial representation of things. This came close to what I imagined it would be like to work within a compulsive neurosis. Really it is more a meditative way of working. These two modes are closely related; maybe a neurosis is a failed longing for meditation.

Later I used the work “knitting” for that way of working, which can also be a very meditative act. The principle that you make a sweater from one thread is what appeals to me. That’s why I began drawing: from the desire to do a lot with one pencil. Painting is based too much on the grand gesture, whereas I want to get to know one thing thoroughly. By drawing all those fine lines I gradually grow into a drawing, like a sculptor who is endlessly sanding and polishing a piece of stone to create a form. Then very slowly an image emerges. It’s very satisfying. In that way you become initiated into the world of specialism: you learn what subtlety can do. I very much believe in the power of subtlety.

In addition to your drawing technique and the spherical frames, your use of color is also very particular. Why do you work in monochromes?

Mainly it has to do with a longing for saturation. Not knowing when to stop: on and on, time and again, in the hope of finally reaching a definite limit. It is a desire to feel very intensely. The bulges in my work emerged from that strangely indolent and bloated feeling. Once I was a teenager, I painted my whole room pink, the waste paper basket, the chair. Everything. I even started collecting pink objects. I have always wondered what is the origin of that urge. Among other things, I associated it with stuffing myself with chocolate, after which I would feel apathetic and depressed. Sometimes I would ask myself the same questions a hundred times a day. Why don’t you know when to stop? Why don’t you have any self-discipline?

When did you start painting animal and human figures instead of landscapes?

My drawings still contain many elements from my landscapes. I used to paint landscapes with lots of animals, trees or birds. The main point for me was emphatic arbitrariness: everything is equally strong; everything has its own center. Everything had to have the apathetic, meditative aura of being, “complete and perfect in itself.” Also, it had to do with the two extremes of spacious and full. I tried to infuse the landscapes with a feeling of physicality. The trees on the canvas had to give you the sensation of ants crawling over your body. In the painting ‘Mountains and Trees’ I depicted the feeling of constantly touching your own little wounds or pimples: disgust and pleasure rolled into one. Another painting was entitled ‘Leprous Landscape’. A massive mountain and a tree also kept reappearing. In fact I’m still busy with that, as in ‘Mary as a Mountain.’ In the end, I had worn out that multiplicity to such a degree that all of a sudden I wanted absolutely only one thing on the canvas. More and more I began drawing animals onto which I projected human feelings. I wanted to express compassion. Compassion always has been a strong element in my emotional life. Compassion with a child, an animal or war victims. I really still don’t know how I should relate to that feeling.

But the figures you portray do not exactly reveal the vehemence of that feeling...

No, it’s more visible in the way I observe them. They look very apathetic. Their feelings seem to be locked-up inside. I emphasize the look in their eyes, and show them in a pitiful position, as if they are being forced into doing something. Like the naked bull brought out to be shown in his Sunday best while he himself is restless and scared and ignorant. I was, and still am, very interested in animals. That has to do with my search for happiness. How do you become happy? Animals are a source of inspiration. I identify with them because I think they live on the basis of a kind of primordial information, and are not ashamed of their nakedness.

You have also made a number of diptychs in which an animal and a woman are depicted side by side.

As in ‘Two Fools,’ in which both a bull and a woman look over their shoulder. There is a loneliness and an expression of not-knowing in both their eyes. Not knowing what kind of a situation you are in, which can also mean that you have broken away from each and every influence.

Since 1989 you have drawn mainly female figures. What is the attraction in that for you? Are they self-portraits?

When I was pregnant with my first child I really only wanted to draw, and especially women. You could indeed consider them as self-portraits. I no longer felt like drawing from a model and then took some photographs of myself as a starting point. Although the drawings don’t always resemble me, I experience everything that I make as a self-portrait precisely because I use myself and my questions as points of departure.

What questions do you ask yourself, then?

I draw whatever vehemently dwells inside of me: concerns, fears, frustrations and amazement, but mountains and trees, too. At the point when I start asking myself questions about things, I’m ready to draw them. By drawing them I give a concrete shape to my problems. I erect a statue to them, as it were. This turns it into something positive: I draw to conquer. For example, in ‘Crying Baby’ I started from a feature of breast-feeding, until then unknown to me. When it happened to me I was astonished. At the same time I thought it was fantastic: as soon as I started talking about my newborn baby, milk would squirt out of my breasts! I was amazed and yet also almost offended that I had never ever heard of a lyrical poem or story about this phenomenon. Or, that it was used in biology lessons at school to prove that body and mind are one. I wanted to erect a statue to this experience. Another fascination is related to looking in a specialized way. When I look at pictures of women, or women in the flesh so to speak, I scan their bodies quickly for imperfections not tolerated by society: pimples, little hairs but especially cellulitis and stretch marks. When I discover one, which usually is not that difficult especially in ‘Playboy’, I think- Ha, she too! Of course, it is ridiculous to see such a small blemish on such a large body. I have caught myself being on the lookout for these imperfections even on trees. Why are they allowed to have them, I thought?

The fleshy bodies in your drawings, but also the swirling lines in the background, have an almost fetishistic quality. They are plainly sensuous. The female figures - but perhaps that applies to all the figures in your work - are displayed in an exhibitionistic fashion. At the same time, you present them in all their vulnerability, full of shame.

I always fall in love with what I draw. Perhaps that is why I chose drawing as a means of relating to things. Often, I hit upon a subject because I am constantly thinking about something, something I am embarrassed about but can’t keep my eyes off or my thoughts from; something that I was already searching for in my landscapes: disgust and pleasure at the same time. So then I ask myself: would I dare to draw this? And then I just have to, based on a vague but compelling feeling. I think that that is where the element of exhibitionism comes in. It gives me an enormous powerful feeling to make something I’m afraid of- that it would be ugly or stupid- into something beautiful. Yet, I work also from a feeling of eagerness and greed. In that way sometime I would like to draw a treasure chest full of jewels and gold.

Many of your drawings show tabooed subjects. Could one say that religious images, as in your drawings of the Virgin May and Buddha, are taboo in the arts?

I didn’t have a religious upbringing, so religion isn’t a taboo for me. Actually, I feel drawn towards it. For a very long time in the history of art religion was the most important source of subject matter. Nowadays, it is an unspoken rule that one cannot address religious themes in art without irony or cynicism. I don’t want to make cynical work.
In a playful way I have always believed in God. I’m not too much concerned with Christianity but more in the fact of believing. I am very credulous. Sometimes that is awkward, yet it also serves me well. It gives me the capacity to take the vague for true.
Five years ago I drew a ‘Mary as a Mountain’ for the first time. Suddenly I realized that most religions don’t have a female God. And at the same time, it dawned on me that at art school I had only male teachers. And also that there were never any references made to female artists. On a cultural level, I had never identified myself with a woman. From a cultural viewpoint my female identity was a blind spot. It’s like a kind of nourishment, a food of primordial information that you need as a woman: when you don’t get it, at first you don’t really notice it. But in the long run it results in a deficiency. I’ve been drawing ‘Mary as a Mountain’ for five years now, over and over again. This constant repetition enables me to study this theme in depth. I don’t know what I really want with this Mary, I just trust that at some point I will arrive at the answer automatically.
That is what I mean with my belief in the power of subtlety. Usually subtlety seems insignificant, it only becomes significant when you zoom in. That’s why I don’t have any problems with visualizing vague feelings like indolence or not-knowing. At present I’m drawing turbulence, which I consider to be a primeval phenomenon just like ‘ignorance’ and ‘animality’. I draw them as exercises in abandonment in the basic assumption that ultimately it will pay off and lead me to something.

If I make a list of all your themes it strikes me that they are all taboos. I never associated your female figures with concepts such as smooth, beautiful, seductive and uncomplicated. What would a lustful femininity look like in your work?

In principle, lustfulness has nothing to do with visual beauty, but everything to do with abandonment. At the same time I have to admit that the ideals of beauty were so deeply drilled into me, I still cannot really separate lustful from beautiful. And also my sense of shame gets in the way. If I’m honest, I think I would find a woman who is uninhibitedly lustful very embarrassing to look at. To me, she would look like a monkey who’s happy.

Why I draw things without status or:
Three amazing, little stories that never left my mind and shaped my life.

1.

My first lesson in Art History at Art School my teacher taught us about how art had started: it had started in caves, where men drew the animals they wanted to catch.
I was shocked because I realized that I didn’t originate from art: as a woman I had no ancestors in art.
And so I asked him: What did woman make?
And he said: Oh, they decorated pots and pans.
At that moment I also realized that art isn’t so much about quality as it is about attributing status. From that moment I knew: woman don’t give status...

2.

In communist China where man and woman had equal rights to study, many woman choose to study medicin. But by the time many woman actually became docters the salary went down to the income of a nurse. Today even gynaecologists don’t want too many woman in their proffession because they are afraid that it will bring the status of their profession down. The strange thing is that this story excited me. Wow ! Imagine a world without status! From that moment on I love to look at things without status and its wonderfull to draw them in endlessly round movements.
Beautifull, little things of no importance. Like man with jewelry. (When was it that man stopped wearing jewelry like they used to?)

3.

Once I was watching television. There was a man who had been taken interviews for woman magazines for four years. His overall conclusion was: ‘Woman always choose for a model of harmony’.
My first inner response was: ‘Oh my god, thats exactly what I do and that’s why I will not succeed in society!’ Later on I was astonished why I came to such a conclusion.
On the other hand: unconsiously I knew that in order to be succesfull in society you have to be fast; think in straight lines; split and make choises (make decisions in a split second).
Where as: I like to connect everything to each other.
And doubt is a constant movement between things.
I like to make compromises for the beauty of harmony.
Stuff empty space with round cosyness, because it makes me feel complete.

4.

Winning is about visibility and showing off. Why climb up and be lonely at the top? Have power but no fun?
I like to think of myself of being like water:
- having no shape from itself, but being adaptable to any shape;
- having the urge to find the lowest spot;
- filling in every hole.
And what is wrong about that?

Kinke Kooi, october 2007.

At a certain point in my development as a visual artist, I made a number of decisions that, until now, continue to work out well for me:

  • - My choise of subject matter always originates from a personal fascination, even though I might be terribly embarrassed about it;
  • - I draw and paint the things I want to show as meticulously as possible, even though the final result might be banal;
  • - I keep on drawing and painting until I am absolutely certain that it is completely finished, even though it might mean going too far.

I have always felt a craving within myself, to exhaust things and to be intensively involved with them: to wear them out as it were. I call it a graving to emphasize the physicallity of that feeling.

I used to think this was bad or greedy of me because one is supposed to know when to stop. Now in abandoning myself to it, I find that this procedure allows me to give a concrete shape to my deepest fascinations, however impossible that sometimes seems to be to me.

At present, I draw and paint figures dealing with ignorance (not-knowing) and nakedness, but also with loneliness, femininity, embarrassment , and compassion: situations usually connected with banality and things that are earthbound but which also reflect an alertness to all forces present.

I employ spatiality beccause it isolates things and sets them apart. It provides them with an aura of apathy and bloated indolance. With the use of lines I try to reinforce this spatial effect; besides that, it also gives me a kind of obsessive-compulsive neurotic satisfaction.

My aim is to create an image that is so spatial that it looks as if you could actually pinch it or smack it, like a shapely bottom.

Op een bepaald punt in mijn ontwikkeling als beeldend kunstenaar heb ik een aantal besluiten genomen die tot nu toe goed functioneren:

  • - mijn onderwerpkeuze ontstaat altijd vanuit een persoonlijke fascinatie, ook al schaam ik me dood;
  • - ik teken en schilder zo nauwgezet mogelijk wat ik wil tonen, ook al wordt het dan banaal;
  • - ik teken en schilder net zolang door totdat ik zeker weet dat het af is, ook al ga ik dan te ver.

Ik heb altijd in mij de zucht gevoeld om de dingen uit te hollen en er heel intensief mee bezig te zijn: ze als het ware uit te wonen. Ik noem het een ‘zucht’ om de lichamelijkheid te benadrukken, zoals sommige mensen waterzucht hebben en er opgezwollen uit zien.

Vroeger dacht ik dat dit slecht en gulzig van me was, omdat je op tijd met de dingen hoort op te houden. Nu ik eraan toegeef merk ik dat ik met deze manier van werken mijn diepste fascinaties, hoe ondoenlijk het me soms ook lijkt, kan vormgeven.

Ik teken en schilder figuren die met onbenul (niet weten) en naaktheid te maken hebben, maar ook met eenzaamheid, vrouwelijkheid, schaamte en medelijden: situaties die meestal met banaliteit en het slijk der aarde verbonden zijn, maar ook met een alertheid voor alle aanwezige krachten.

Ik maak gebruik van ruimtelijkheid omdat die dingen op zich laat staan en een apatische, vadsige uitstraling kan geven. Met behulp van lijnen probeer ik een nog ruimtelijker effect te krijgen; bovendien geeft het me een soort dwang-neorotische bevrediging.

Liefst wil ik het zo ruimtelijk hebben dat je er als het ware in kan knijpen, of er een klap op kan geven als tegen een achterwerk.

Kinke Kooi, 1993.

Imagine a world without status. Interview with Kinke Kooi.

A wall hanging with a variety of decorative patterns woven into every millimetre of it. Newspaper photos of an indigenous man lavishly decked out in jewellery from medieval altarpieces. A scribbled text hanging above a sink with the words ‘prepare lecture and travel through the country with it.’ There are books on the table with dizzying, fluorescent fractals, Celtic artefacts and miniatures, and there’s one about myths of the wild woman, titled ‘Women Who Run with the Wolves’ (‘my favourite’), opened to a story about a witch who lives in a house on chicken legs.

Amongst this vast array of visual stimuli, my attention is drawn to one constant in Kinke Kooi’s studio: a dense web of sensually undulating pencil lines stretched out across sheets of white- or pink-coloured sketching paper and photos. The drawings have names such as ‘Adaptability’, ‘Digging for origin’, ‘Subtlety’, ‘Housewife’, ‘Exercise to surrender’ or ‘Female view’, and they are filled with fine, flowing lines begging to be coveted. Strings of pearls meander elegantly through a deep-blue world, a hand glides through voluptuous curves in order to grab a pearl from its depths. Cave openings and organic vaults draw our gaze inside, mysterious dream cities on rocks peer at us. Elsewhere we recognize ordinary objects, like a comb connected to a needle and thread. Kooi does not limit herself to the ‘thing in itself’. The spaces between eyes, beads or other insignificant objects are at least equally important. They are transformed into pulsating, close-fitting shells, which, with their swirling and spherical shapes, endow ordinary things and words with an alluring touchability. The ‘incarnation of space’ seems to set everything into motion.

In my opinion, Kooi’s passion for drawing has nothing to do with the fear of empty spaces (horror vacui): the abundance of fragile, swirling lines stems from an almost insatiable need to reconcile the distance between things or people in order to show how smallness, for all its apparent futility, can be meaningful and alluring. The result is a fairy-tale illusion. Following is a conversation with an artist who tells us, like an ebullient stream, about the inspiration behind her work, about the desire to move towards a society in which all male and female qualities are held in equal esteem, and, above all, who uses femininity as a positive force to change the world, as Yoko Ono once so aptly put it.

MW: Can you describe the physical feeling you experience while you draw? What goes on inside you?

KK: I derive pleasure from knitting everything together, so to speak, from being close to the paper while I’m drawing. Actually, all I do is comb hair and string beads. It’s a meditative way of working. I’m also always looking for an excuse to draw things I can’t seem to leave alone, like little balls. They represent things I’m attracted to: jewellery, beads and berries. I have a kind of primeval instinct to physically unite with things as I’m gathering them. It’s a form of clinging to things and drawing them towards me, a kind of eroticism and fertility… That’s why the rubbing and polishing of circles and spheres are important to me, because I feel the visual smoothness tingling in my fingertips. Somehow it gives me physical satisfaction: my eyes see what my hands want to feel. I once saw a commercial for an anti-wrinkle cream that visualized how positive its effect can be, like elastic balls under the skin that dance up and down energetically.

MW: You added the following text to the drawing ‘Logos Eros’: ‘This is the moment for all women who feel ashamed of being a “nestler”.’ Shame seems to be a recurring theme in your work. You feel ashamed, and at the same time you take on all the subjects that you feel are painful or taboo, in order to get to the bottom of the subject and embroider on it. In the early 1990s, these were subjects such as female body hair, menstruation blood, cellulitis, leaking breasts, not knowing (ignorance), but also hilly landscapes with grazing animals which, despite the distance separating them, were connected by a kind of vigilance. Striking features of your recent work are the subterranean caves and mountains with cavities. For example, the body becomes a house with cave-like openings, or the reverse is true, namely you make a body out of a house. What does it mean to work with themes you are ashamed of?

KK: It means surrender and release. I realize that I like to swim against the current, because feeling resistance is also a form of support. People often talk about the importance of climbing up the social ladder. You have to distinguish yourself, stand out and climb, higher and higher, until you reach the top. No one talks about what it’s like to go the other way. You can slide down, to the lowest point, into the abyss. This thought inspired me to create cavities, where you can live and hide. Above the cavities, I draw apartment buildings. To me, the apartments represent urbanity, responsibility, the head, the untouchable, the hi-tech, the hygienic. The cavities represent the erotic, the invisible underworld, the low, the bowels and the unhygienic. I want to visualize the conflict between the career and the nest.

I come to rest in the holes of shame, as it were. I live in them for a while, I explore them. They’re a no-man’s land. Because occupying them is so unpopular, no one wants to be there. The top is all about incisiveness and being squeezed together. Being in a high place enables you to survey things and create distance. I have difficulty with this detachment. I want, above all, to be close, to be intimate. In our interview from 1993, I said that painting is based on a grand gesture. When you paint with a brush, you have to become detached. By becoming detached, you don’t lose yourself in details. It’s precisely the latter that I find extremely pleasant. That’s why I like drawing so much. That’s why I like images with ‘fractals’, where the large disappears into the small. And why I like the miniatures in Flemish Primitive art, which zoom in so closely on details that the painters literally lose sight of the perspective. After the Renaissance, the brush stroke becomes increasingly heavy, and artists start to create more distance. I wonder whether the increasing ‘awareness of self’ also results in more detachment and hence the desire to be at the top. Although I also feel at home in that ‘awareness of self’ and think a great deal about climbing higher, it also bothers me. I have a desire to be a part of the whole. The most difficult thing is being pulled back and forth between high and low. That was certainly true when my children were young. They demand that you do not seclude yourself. Reading a book is already too much. A good talk with a friend is an absolute no-no. The funny thing is that doing the dishes or ironing is acceptable, because you can stay in contact with them.

MW: How did you manage to combine children with your career as an artist?

KK: The problem is not a lack of time: that can be arranged. Actually, it’s thanks to the children that my husband and I worked harder and better. In that respect, they were an addition to our careers. Being pulled back and forth is essentially something that happened in my mind. The combination of children and ambition was the most difficult ninety-degree turn I could possibly have made. When I look back objectively at what my real ambitions have been since my childhood, then finding true love came in first place, followed by having children and, lastly, perhaps a career some day. The latter was probably attributable to the fact that in my immediate surroundings there were no examples of women who combined both. It was the complete reverse for my husband, who is also an artist: first a career, then a wife and children. Yin and yang: me from the inside to the outside, he from the outside to the inside. When our children were young, we decided to devote an equal amount of time to our desires in the areas of relationship, children and art. That meant that our careers would have to slow down. We started working at the wide base of a pyramid and slowly climbed upwards. Essentially we’re engaged in a ‘mixed enterprise’, which was a good decision. Now, everything has a place and a name, without the need to furtively whisk off in between.

MW: Nevertheless, most of your attention now seems to be devoted to the low...

KK: The high is already so visible and has been elaborated on in such detail, while the low is so inconspicuous. When drawing, I feel a visual hunger inside me to concentrate precisely on the inconspicuous, which occupies such a large place in my life. The cavities have to do with relaxation, intimacy, with being subsumed by the whole, and with my living environment. During a pregnancy, a child lives in his or her mother. I live in my body. Sometimes I feel my eyes literally acting as windows. I am frequently occupied with my living environment. Domesticity is very important to me.

My greatest wish was to one day have a low, sunken sitting area or a couch made of the same material as the wallpaper. My eyes long to see something that fades into something else. I never bought anything like it because I was afraid that it would make a frumpy impression. It also seemed a wonderful idea to use a stencil to decorate the edges of every window or door opening. The fact that I was frightened that others would find it frumpy says something about the inherent disapproval of the decorative, the feminine. I have a large drawer full of lace that I hold against new clothes to see how it looks. Still, I never sew them on, because it’s not cool. The arbiters of good taste shun decorations along edges, because that suggests obedience. Decoration uses the shape that is already there and adds to it. And that doesn’t square with the individual ‘feeling of self’. It is acceptable in folklore, however, which is an art form that emerged from the collective, and which represents more of a ‘communal feeling’. I’m somewhere in between. Luckily I can indulge this urge in my work. I follow the edges of the paper. In the 1980s, I even painted the frames in the colour of the drawing. That’s similar to a form of adaptation and absorption in the whole, with which I want to foster a new understanding.

MW: What you call adaptation can just as easily be interpreted as being contrary.

KK: You’re right. That’s a complicated but also an exciting area. I am naturally attracted to seeing possibilities in the impossible. As a result, I often get mixed up in awkward thoughts and all those things so many people find embarrassing. That automatically leads to feminine subjects. I once heard that gynaecologists are scared that their profession will lose status as soon as there are too many female colleagues. I found this immensely intriguing. Wow, imagine a world without status! Around 1995, I drew brightly coloured rays and auras around people, animals and bodily orifices and house windows. Painting auras felt just like performing magic: the object around which I was going to paint an aura became instantly significant. An aura is always used to draw attention to something invisible. In icons it’s holiness, in comics it’s emotions. I perceive that which is omitted as a visual hole. This form of invisibility feels like a void demanding to be filled with attention. So actually I fill the holes. In fact, my work is about completing: I want to make things whole again. I can therefore imagine that a great deal of art springing from contrariness is actually healing.

MW: When we talked about this subject fifteen years ago, I felt relieved to meet an artist who for once didn’t react so furtively about issues such as ‘gender’ and ‘femininity’. You simply called them by their name, and you described your shame and fear as candidly as I had ever heard an artist do. This lack of inhibition suited you, and simultaneously it made you more vulnerable. Do you consider yourself a feminist?

KK: On the one hand, I want to be a feminist, and on the other hand, I want to be a bourgeois housewife. Strangely enough, the two don’t combine well. Although adapting is an unpopular issue in feminism, many nevertheless have adapted to the male work rhythm. For example, there’s no monthly interval. I can imagine that as soon as women were to organize a workplace, private and professional life would interact much more and be less strictly separated. There should be many more women working in the higher echelons, but the top itself has to change too. Too many elements are shut out to which women in particular attach great importance. The time is ripe for a new balance focused more on cycles and not only on linearity.

MW: Do you think there’s such a thing as typically female art?

KK: When I was at the art academy, the art history professor explained the origins of art to us. According to him it all started in caves when men drew the animals they wanted to catch. When I asked him what women were creating, he replied that they decorated pots and pans. This had a huge impact on me: I was seriously working on becoming an artist but wasn’t a direct descendant of the original source. Instead, I belonged to the ‘home crafts’ branch of art. As a woman, I had no ancestors in art. At that point, I realized that art is not just about quality but also about granting status. Although at the time I was shocked by the story about the prehistoric drawing, it also intrigued me. What’s the story behind adorning and decorating? Why is one referred to as home crafts and the other as art, I wondered? Why are decorative patterns and weaving, from which the first mathematical principles and abstraction are derived, called home crafts and the other Art with a capital A? Why is knitting a piece of clothing from a single piece of thread not seen as a great concept? How did it become ‘less valuable’ than ‘high’ art? When did men actually stop wearing jewellery? What happened in their way of thinking to make them stop focusing on outward appearance, on the small, on decoration, on detail? And why did women continue to wear jewellery?

In my work, I don’t think in terms of feminism, but I do think in terms of typically female themes and art. Feminism sounds like mutiny to me, because it’s such a charged subject. At the same time, it’s brushed aside: no one wants to burn their fingers on its vulnerability. For example, someone once called Louise Bourgeois’ work uterine art. That word gave me the creeps, but I also asked myself why. I recognize female themes in art, which incidentally can be treated by men as well. I associate femininity with a more exploratory attitude, more intuitive and sensory, unafraid to lose the overall view or one’s way. It means working without a predetermined plan, which I once witnessed during a visit to a workshop in San Francisco where a woman was passionately crocheting beautiful dresses without using a pattern. I immediately recognized her love for crocheting: you start somewhere and create the shape with a single thread as you go along. During that visit, I was also intrigued by the work of an artist who stole other people’s possessions and immediately wrapped them in thread, like a spider. In our interview from 1993, I compared my way of working with a meditative way of knitting. The principle that you can create any kind of shape from a single thread still appeals to me. With my pencil line, which I consider to be my thread, I spin everything together: I enfold and clothe everything and move in between all these things, like a spider weavings its web. Sometimes this contrariness can provide support, but it can just as easily be oppressive. It’s a pleasant way of giving you the creeps. Caring and intimacy can become constricting in a similar way and turn into oppressiveness. I want to face up to it through my drawing. Whenever I draw something, I always develop a love for it.

MW: What role does ‘the invisible’ play in your work?

KK: Nothing is invisible if you look carefully enough. I like to focus my attention on things that you don’t see. For example, there’s also a different, recent opinion about cave drawings. Apparently the drawings didn’t focus on hunting but originated during rituals focused on trance. People sought the darkness of their caves because the eyes produced spontaneous images in the dark. I find this ‘seeing in the dark’ very appealing. I see a connection between looking very carefully and the spiritual. Since the Enlightenment, human beings have focused on the visible, that which can be proved and can be perceived. In alchemy, the day/sun, the visible, represented the male and the night/moon represented the female element for centuries. They were held in equal esteem. In our society, the emphasis has been placed on the visible, the day, while the invisible, the night, has fallen by the wayside.

MW: In other words, you see a link between invisibility and femininity. Please explain.

KK: After I had my daughter, I became more interested than ever in the images that she would see in her lifetime, and which she would identify with. I was shocked by the one-dimensional image of women in the media, films and comics. I call that visual loneliness. Take ‘Mowgli’, for example. That’s a wonderful cartoon, but there’s not a single woman in it, except at the end, when a girl entices Mowgli to settle down and lead a respectable life together. The element of adventure is therefore juxtaposed with respectable life: one is exciting, the other boring. In fairy tales, women often do play a leading role, but then as Cinderella or Snow White. As a girl, you like to identify with them, but not as a feminist: both are a part of me, but there’s a huge emotional gap in between. I’ve developed a kind of tic while watching television, which is something I like to do and do a lot: I ‘cover up’ the men and ‘leave out’ the women’. I’ve noticed that especially in adventure films, an entire film can revolve around a woman though she barely appears on screen. So invisibility and femininity go together well. You see the same imbalance in the Smurf village. There are all kinds of Smurfs, characters and occupations: a clever Smurf, romantic Smurf, intellectual Smurf, etc., but there’s only one female Smurf in the entire village. The characterization of the female Smurf is that she’s female. I would like to fill in these black gaps in visual information.

MW: Where does your appeal for all the curves, openings and connecting lines come from?

KK: I find it incredibly satisfying to draw curves and arcs. I’m attached to the idea that one thing fades into the other without interruption. In my experience, a straight line also involves making an incision. In the explanation of Tarot cards, there’s a story about the sharpness of the sword, which is capable of separating one thing, good, from another, evil. In discussions, people are always going on about being sharp, separating matters of primary and secondary importance, which essentially represents clarity, something that can be very pleasant, and which can be restful to me. But if you strive for harmony, which I like to do, minor issues are also extremely important so you can bring different points of view together and connect them. I keep winding them around and around until, as if from their own volition, new images and insights emerge. Perhaps that’s why my eyes are so often drawn to the ‘completed’ whole. All I do in my work is look for extremes and nestle myself in between them. Connect everything to everything else – it’s like the ‘cuddle hormone’!

I sometimes compare my way of working with water. It has no form in itself but adapts itself to any other form. It always runs to the lowest point, fills even the smallest hole without missing a single one. So from that perspective, my drawing behaviour is a perfect form of adaptation, because there’s nothing I like better than filling up the space in between things. This enables me to touch everything, and it gives me the feeling of being in contact. It also evokes something electrifying and lustful as soon as everything touches everything else.

Mirjam Westen
Oosterbeek, 30 December 2008

Imagine a world without status. Interview met Kinke Kooi.

Een worteldoek waarin tot op de millimeter allerlei decoratieve motieven zijn geweven. Krantenfoto’s van een inheemse man rijkelijk uitgedost met sieraden, van middeleeuwse altaarstukken. Boven de wasbak hangt in hanenpootschrift de tekst ‘lezing maken en daarmee het land rondreizen’. Op tafel liggen boeken met duizelingwekkende fluorescerende fractals , met Keltische kunstvoorwerpen en miniaturen en een over het vrouwbeeld in Russische sprookjes, getiteld “De ongetemde vrouw” (‘mijn lijfboek’), opengeslagen bij het verhaal over een heks die woont in een huis op kippenpoten.

Te midden van die grote verscheidenheid aan visuele prikkels wordt mijn aandacht opgeëist door één constante in het atelier van Kinke Kooi: een dicht web van sensueel golvende potloodlijnen strekt zich uit over wit of roze gekleurde tekenvellen en foto’s. ‘Adaptability’, ‘Digging for origin’, ‘Subtlety’, ‘Housewife’, ‘Exercise to surrender’ of ‘Female view’ heten tekeningen die, opgevuld met fijne, vloeiende lijnen erom vragen begeerd te worden. Parelsnoeren slingeren zich elegant door een diepblauwe wereld, een hand glijdt tussen wellustige welvingen door om vanuit het binnenste een parelsteen te pakken. Grotopeningen en organische gewelven zuigen de blik naar binnen, geheimzinnige droomsteden op rotsen lonken, dan weer herkennen we gewone dingen als een haarkam verbonden met een naald en draad. Kooi beperkt zich niet tot het ding an sich, de ruimtes tussen ogen, kralen of andere onbetekenende voorwerpen zijn minstens zo belangrijk. Ze worden getransformeerd tot pulserende nauwsluitende omhulsels die met hun kringelende en bolle vormen een verleidelijke aanraakbaarheid verlenen aan gewone dingen en woorden. De ‘vleesgeworden ruimte’ lijkt alles in beweging te zetten.

Met angst voor de leegte (horror vacui) heeft Kooi’s tekendrift volgens mij niets te maken; de overdaad aan fragiele, circulerende lijnen komt voort uit een welhaast onverzadigbare behoefte om de afstand tussen de dingen of tussen mensen te overbruggen. Om te laten zien hoe het kleine, in al zijn nietigheid betekenisvol en verleidelijk kan zijn. Sprookjesachtige zinsbegoochelingen zijn het resultaat. Een gesprek met een kunstenaar die als een sprankelende waterstroom verhaalt over datgene wat haar inspireert in haar werk, over het verlangen naar een samenleving waarin aan mannelijke en vrouwelijke eigenschappen evenveel waarde wordt gehecht, en die vooral zelf, zoals Yoko Ono het ooit treffend verwoordde, vrouwelijkheid inzet als een positieve kracht om de wereld te veranderen.

MW: Kan jij het fysieke gevoel beschrijven wat jij meemaakt tijdens het tekenen? Wat gaat er door jou heen?

KK: Ik vind het fijn om, dicht op het papier, al tekenend alles aan elkaar te breien. Eigenlijk doe ik niets anders dan haren kammen en kralen rijgen; het is een meditatieve manier van werken. Ik zoek ook naar een smoes om te tekenen wat ik niet laten kan, zoals bolletjes. Ze staan voor de dingen waar ik me toe aangetrokken voel: sieraden, kralen en bessen. Vanuit een soort oerinstinct wil ik me al plukkende lichamelijk met de dingen verbinden. Het is een vorm van willen vasthouden en naar me toetrekken, van erotiek en vruchtbaarheid... Daarom is het slijpen en polijsten van de bollingen voor mij belangrijk, ik voel die visuele gladheid in mijn vingertoppen tintelen. Op de een of andere manier schenkt mij dat een lichamelijke bevrediging: mijn oog ziet wat mijn handen willen voelen. In een reclame voor rimpelcrème zag ik eens hoe het positieve effect ervan wordt voorgesteld: als elastische bolletjes onder de huid die energiek op en neer dansen.

MW: Aan de tekening ‘Logos Eros’ voegde je de tekst toe: ‘This is the moment for all women who feel ashamed that they are ‘tutje’. Schaamte lijkt een rode lijn in je werk. Je schaamt je en tegelijkertijd pak je alle onderwerpen op die je als pijnlijk of als taboe ervaart, om ze eens lekker uit te diepen en aan te dikken. Begin jaren negentig waren dat onderwerpen als vrouwelijke lichaamsbeharing, menstruatiebloed, cellulitis, lekkende borsten, het niet-weten (onbenul), maar ook glooiende landschappen met grazende dieren die ondanks de afstand tussen elkaar, verbonden werden door een soort van waakzaamheid. Opvallend in je werk van de laatste jaren zijn de onderaardse holen en bergen met holtes. Het lichaam wordt bij voorbeeld een huis met grotachtige openingen, of omgekeerd, van het huis maak je een lichaam. Wat betekent het werken met thema’s waarvoor je je schaamt?

KK: Het betekent overgave en loslaten. Ik realiseer me dat ik graag tegen de stroom in zwem, want weerstand voelen geeft ook steun. Vaak heeft men het over het belang van het stijgen op de maatschappelijke ladder. Je moet je onderscheiden, opvallen en klimmen, alsmaar hoger, naar de top. Niemand heeft het erover hoe is het als je de andere kant uitgaat. Je kunt ook afzakken, naar het laagste punt, naar het dal. Die gedachte inspireert mij tot het maken van holtes, waarin je kunt wonen en schuilen. Bovenop de holtes teken ik flatgebouwen. De flats vertegenwoordigen voor mij het stedelijke, het verantwoorde, het hoofd, het onaanraakbare, hightech, de hygiëne. De holtes staan voor het erotische, de onzichtbare onderwereld, het lage, de ingewanden en het onhygiënische. Ik wil het conflict tussen de carrière en het nest visualiseren.

In die gaten van schaamte rust ik als het ware uit, ik woon er een tijdje in, ik verken ze. Het zijn niemandslanden. Omdat het zo impopulair is, wil niemand daar zijn. De top heeft met samenknijpen en toespitsing te maken. Als je hoog zit heb je overzicht en neem je afstand. Met die afstand heb ik moeite, ik wil juist dichtbij, intiem zijn. In ons interview uit 1993 zeg ik dat het schilderen uitgaat van het grote gebaar. Als je met een kwast schildert moet je veel afstand nemen. Door afstand te nemen verlies je jezelf niet in details. Dat laatste vind ik juist heel prettig. Daarom teken ik zo graag. Daarom houd ik van afbeeldingen met ‘fractals’, waar het grote verdwijnt in het kleine. En van de miniaturen in de Vlaamse Primitieve kunst, waarin zo haarfijn op details is ingezoomd dat het perspectief letterlijk uit het oog verloren is. Na de Renaissance wordt de kwaststreek steeds grover en gaat de kunstenaar steeds meer afstand nemen. Ik vraag me af of het toenemende ’ik-besef’ ook meer afstandelijkheid met zich meebrengt en dus het verlangen om op de top te zitten. Hoewel ik me thuisvoel in dat ‘ik-besef’ en veel nadenk over het klimmen, zit het me ook dwars. Ik verlang er naar om een onderdeel van het geheel te zijn. Dat heen en weer getrokken worden tussen hoog en laag is het moeilijkst. Zeker toen mijn kinderen klein waren. Zij eisen van je dat je je niet afsluit, een boek lezen is al te veel. Een goed gesprek met een vriendin is uit den boze. Het grappige is dat afwassen en strijken bijvoorbeeld wel weer mogen, omdat je dan in contact kan blijven.

MW: Hoe heb jij kinderen met je kunstenaarscarrière gecombineerd?

KK: Het zit ’m niet in het tijd tekort: dat valt te regelen. Eigenlijk werkten mijn man en ik door de kinderen harder en beter. Wat dat betreft zijn ze een toevoeging op onze carrière. Het heen en weer getrokken worden speelde zich vooral in mijn hoofd af. De combinatie van kinderen en ambitie was de moeilijkste flikflak die ik kon maken. Wanneer ik oordeelloos terug kijk naar wat van kinds af aan mijn werkelijke ambities waren, dan kwam bij mij het vinden van de ware liefde op de eerste plaats, gevolgd door kinderen krijgen, en ten slotte, eventueel, een carrière. En dat ’misschien een carrière’ komt omdat ik in mijn directe omgeving geen voorbeelden had van vrouwen die beide combineerden. Bij mijn man, die ook kunstenaar is, was het precies andersom: eerst een carrière, dan een vrouw en kinderen. Yin en yang: ik van binnen naar buiten, hij van buiten naar binnen. Toen onze kinderen klein waren, hebben wij besloten om voor al onze verlangens op het gebied van relatie, kinderen en kunst, even veel tijd uit te trekken. Dat betekende dat onze carrières minder snel zouden gaan. We werken eerst aan de brede voet van een piramide en klimmen dan langzaam omhoog. In wezen hebben we een ‘gemengd bedrijf’, en dat is een goed besluit geweest. Alles heeft nu een plek en een naam, zonder stiekem tussen de bedrijven door te worden weggemoffeld.

MW: Toch lijkt je aandacht nu het meest uit te gaan naar het lage...?

KK: Het hoge is al zo zichtbaar en uitgewerkt, terwijl het lage zo onopvallend is. Ik voel een visuele honger in me om juist dat onopvallende, wat veel plek in mijn leven inneemt, te tekenen. De holtes hebben te maken met ontspanning, intimiteit, met opgaan in het geheel, en met wonen. Een kind woont tijdens de zwangerschap in zijn of haar moeder. Ik woon in mijn lichaam. Soms ervaar ik hoe mijn ogen letterlijk functioneren als vensters. Ik ben veel met wonen bezig, huiselijkheid is heel belangrijk voor me.

Mijn grootste wens was om ooit een zitkuil te hebben of een bank met dezelfde stof als het behang; mijn oog verlangt er naar iets te zien wat opgaat in iets anders. Ik heb dit nooit aangeschaft uit angst dat het een tuttige indruk zou maken. Ook leek het mij heerlijk om met een sjabloon om iedere raam- of deuropening een decoratieve rand te tamponneren. Het feit dat ik bang was dat anderen het tuttig zouden vinden zegt iets over de onuitgesproken afkeuring van het decoratieve, van het vrouwelijke. Ik heb een grote lade met kantjes die ik even langs nieuwe kleren houd om te zien hoe het staat. Toch naai ik ze er nooit aan, omdat het niet stoer staat. Het dictaat van de goede smaak ziet liever geen versieringen langs randen, want dat drukt volgzaamheid uit. Decoratie volgt de vorm die er al is en vult die aan. En dat strookt niet met het individuele ‘ik-gevoel’. In de folklore, een kunstvorm die uit het collectieve ontstaan is, en meer staat voor een ’wij- gevoel’, kan het weer wel. Ik hang daar tussen in. Gelukkig kan ik in mijn werk die drang wel uitleven. Ik volg de randen van het papier. In de jaren tachtig schilderde ik zelfs de lijsten mee in de kleuren van de tekening. Dat is als een vorm van aanpassen en opgaan in het geheel, waar ik een nieuwe verstandhouding mee wil krijgen.

MW: Wat jij aanpassen noemt kan net zo goed als dwarsigheid worden opgevat.

KK: Je hebt gelijk, dat vind ik een ingewikkeld, maar ook spannend gebied. Van nature voel ik me aangetrokken om mogelijkheden te zien in de onmogelijkheid. Daardoor raak ik vaak verzeild in gedachtes over pijnlijkheden en al datgene wat velen gênant vinden. Zo kom je vanzelf uit bij vrouwelijke onderwerpen. Ik hoorde eens dat gynaecologen bang zijn dat hun beroep in status zal dalen zodra er teveel vrouwelijke collega’s bij komen. Dit verhaal intrigeerde me mateloos. Wauw, stel je eens een wereld zonder status voor! Rond 1995 tekende ik felgekleurde stralen en aura’s rondom mensen, dieren, en lichaamsgaten en vensters van huizen. Het schilderen van aura’s voelde net als toveren: waar ik een aura omheen schilderde werd gelijk belangrijk. Een aura wordt gebruikt om de aandacht te vestigen op iets onzichtbaars. In iconen is dat heiligheid, in strips zijn dat emoties. Datgene wat wordt overgeslagen vat ik op als een visueel gat. Die vorm van onzichtbaarheid voelt als een leegte die erom vraagt om te worden opgevuld met aandacht. Ik vul dus eigenlijk de gaten in. Ik werk aanvullend en wil het weer heel maken. Zo stel ik me voor dat veel kunst die uit dwarsigheid voortkomt, eigenlijk helend is.

MW: Toen wij elkaar vijftien jaar geleden hierover spraken vond ik het een opluchting om een kunstenares te ontmoeten die nu eens niet zo besmuikt reageerde als het ging om kwesties als ‘gender’ en ‘het vrouwelijke’. Je benoemde ze gewoon en je beschreef je schaamte en angst zo openlijk zoals ik het niet eerder van een kunstenares had gehoord. Die onbevangenheid sierde jou, en maakte jou tegelijkertijd kwetsbaar. Noem jij je een feministe?

KK: Aan de ene kant wil ik een feministe zijn, aan de andere kant een burgertrutje. Gek genoeg gaan deze twee moeilijk samen. Hoewel aanpassen bij veel feministen moeilijk ligt hebben velen zich toch aangepast aan het werk ritme van de mannen. Er is bijvoorbeeld geen maandelijkse pauze. Ik stel me voor dat zodra de werkvloer door vrouwen is ingericht, privé en werk veel meer door elkaar zullen lopen en minder strikt gescheiden zijn. Er zouden veel meer vrouwen in de top moeten functioneren, maar ook de top zelf moet veranderen. Er worden teveel elementen buitengesloten, waaraan juist vrouwen veel belang hechten. De tijd is rijp voor een nieuwe balans die meer op cycli is gericht en niet alleen op lineariteit.

MW: Vind jij dat er zoiets bestaat als typische kunst van vrouwen?

KK: Ik denk er veel over na. Ik herken vrouwelijke thema’s in de kunst, die overigens ook door mannen uitgewerkt kunnen worden. Toen ik op de kunstacademie zat vertelde de kunstgeschiedenis docent een theorie over de oorsprong van kunst: het was volgens hem begonnen in grotten toen mannen dieren tekenden die ze wilden vangen. Op mijn vraag wat vrouwen dan maakten, antwoordde hij: zij decoreerden potten en pannen. Er ging een enorme schok door mij heen: ik was serieus bezig om kunstenaar te worden maar stamde in oorsprong niet van de directe bron af, maar hoorde bij de ‘huisvlijt’ tak. Als vrouw had ik geen voorlopers in kunst. Op dat moment realiseerde ik me dat kunst niet alleen over kwaliteit gaat, maar ook over het toekennen van status. Hoewel ik destijds door dat verhaal over de oertekening was geschokt intrigeerde het mij ook. Hoe zit dat met versieren en decoreren? Waarom heet de ene huisvlijt en de andere kunst?, zo vroeg ik me af. Waarom worden decoratieve (weef)patronen en vlechtmatten waaruit de eerste wiskundige beginselen en abstractie voortkomen, huisvlijt genoemd en het andere Kunst met een grote K? Waarom wordt het breien van een kledingstuk uit een enkele draad niet gezien als een groots concept? Hoe heeft zij kans gezien om ‘minder waard’ te worden dan de ‘hoge’ kunst? Wanneer zijn mannen eigenlijk gestopt met het dragen van sieraden? Wat is er in het denken gebeurt dat ze zich uiterlijk niet meer kunnen inlaten met het kleine, met versiering, met het detail? En waarom zijn vrouwen wel sieraden blijven dragen?

Het principe dat je met een enkele draad iedere vorm kunt maken spreekt me nog steeds aan. Met mijn potloodlijn, die ik beschouw als mijn draad, spin ik alles aan elkaar, zoals een spin haar web weeft. Daar zit een element van horror in: je kunt er in verstrikt raken. Soms kan die ‘vastigheid’ steun geven, maar ze kan evengoed benauwen. Het is een combinatie van genot en afschuw tegelijk. Verzorgen en intimiteit kunnen op dezelfde manier iets beklemmends krijgen en omslaan in benauwdheid. Ik wil dat onder ogen zien door het te tekenen. Wanneer ik iets teken ga ik er van houden.

MW: Welke rol speelt ’het onzichtbare’ in jouw werk?

KK: Niets is onzichtbaar, als je maar goed kijkt. Ik vind het prettig om mijn blik te richten op iets dat je niet ziet. Er bestaat bijvoorbeeld ook een andere, recente visie op de grottekeningen. De tekeningen zouden niet gericht zijn geweest op de jacht, maar zijn ontstaan tijdens rituelen gericht op trance. Men zocht de donkerte van de grotten omdat de ogen in het donker spontaan beelden produceren. Dat ’zien in het donker’ spreekt mij erg aan. Ik zie een verband tussen heel goed kijken en het spirituele. Sinds de verlichting is de mensheid gericht op het zichtbare, datgene wat te bewijzen is en wat je kunt zien. In de alchemie stond eeuwenlang de dag/zon, het zichtbare, voor het mannelijke en de nacht/maan voor het vrouwelijke element. Ze waren gelijkwaardig aan elkaar. In onze maatschappij is de nadruk komen te liggen op het zichtbare, de dag, en is het onzichtbare, de nacht, uit het oog verloren.

MW: Je ziet dus een verband tussen onzichtbaarheid en het vrouwelijke? Leg dat eens uit.

KK: Nadat ik mijn dochter had gekregen interesseerde ik me meer dan ooit voor de beelden die zij in haar leven te zien zou krijgen, en waarmee ze zich zou kunnen identificeren. Toen schrok ik van het eendimensionale vrouwbeeld in de media , films en strips. Ik noem dat visuele eenzaamheid. Neem bijvoorbeeld ‘Moglie’, dat is een prachtige tekenfilm, er komt alleen geen enkele vrouw in voor, behalve op het eind, wanneer een meisje Moglie verleidt om samen een burgerlijk leven te gaan leiden. Het avontuurlijke wordt dus tegenover het burgerlijke geplaatst: het ene is spannend, het andere saai. In sprookjes spelen vrouwen wel vaak de hoofdrol, maar dan als Assepoester of Sneeuwwitje. Als meisje identificeer je je daar graag mee, als feministe niet: beide leven in mij, maar er tussen gaapt een emotioneel gat. Ik heb een soort tic ontwikkeld om bij het kijken naar de televisie wat ik graag en veel doe, de mannen ’af te dekken’ en de vrouwen uit te sparen. Vooral bij avonturenfilms valt mij op dat een hele film om een vrouw kan draaien, terwijl ze toch amper in beeld komt. Onzichtbaarheid en het vrouwelijke gaan dus goed samen. Je ziet deze verhoudingen ook weerspiegeld in het smurfendorp. Je hebt allerlei smurfentypes, karakters en beroepen: slimme smurf, romantische smurf, intellectuele smurf et cetera, maar in het hele dorp woont slechts één vrouwsmurf. De typering van vrouwsmurf is dat ze vrouw is. Voor mij zijn dat zwarte gaten in de visuele informatie.

MW: Waarin schuilt voor jou de aantrekkelijkheid van al die rondingen, openingen en verbindingslijnen?

KK: Ik vind het ongelofelijk bevredigend om rondingen en welvingen te tekenen. Ik hecht eraan dat het ene in het andere overgaat zonder onderbreking. In mijn beleving heeft een rechte lijn ook te maken met het maken van een snee. In de uitleg bij de Tarot kaarten staat een verhaal over de scherpte van het zwaard, dat in staat is het ene, het goede, van het andere, het kwade te scheiden. In discussies wordt er altijd op gehamerd scherp te zijn, om hoofd- van bijzaken te scheiden, wat in wezen staat voor duidelijkheid die heel prettig kan zijn en waarin ik ook uit kan rusten. Maar als je streeft naar harmonie, wat ik graag doe, zijn bijzaken ook erg belangrijk, om bijvoorbeeld verschillende standpunten aan elkaar te smeren en te verbinden. Ik omwikkel ze net zo lang totdat zich, als vanzelf, nieuwe beelden en inzichten ontpoppen. Hecht mijn blik misschien daarom zo vaak aan het ‘afgeronde’ geheel? In mijn werk doe ik niets anders dan uitersten opzoeken en ertussen in gaan zitten. Alles met alles willen verbinden, het lijkt wel op het ‘knuffel-hormoon’ !

Ik vergelijk mijn manier van werken wel eens met de vloeibaarheid van water. Het loopt altijd naar het laagste punt, vult zelfs het kleinste holletje op zonder er ook maar één over te slaan. Dus zo bezien is mijn tekengedrag een optimale vorm van aanpassen, want ik vind niets fijner dan de ruimte tussen de dingen op te vullen. Op die manier raak ik alles aan, het geeft het gevoel dat ik in contact ben. Het roept ook iets zinderends en lustvols op zodra alles elkaar raakt.

Mirjam Westen
Oosterbeek, 30 december 2008

i met the goddesses kinke kooi and cokkie snoei with a smaller darker haired siren whose name i dont remember tho know it sounded quite different, in the isolated warm glow of a streetlight during a very dark crystal clear frozen night in early 90s amsterdam. giantesses, both much taller than i, looking down at me with brilliant clear eyes, soft white skin, rosy cheeks draped by hair, and bursts of clouds from their mouths as they spoke. and there were also layers of soft textured clothes with distinct details, some metallic and glistening, and subtle modulations of dark colors. and leather boots, six of them. all in all formidable but friendly. i felt dwarfed. and interested.

sometime way later i was wandering wondering thru kinke’s catalog, the one where everything is pink, delighted by the girlie, pussy, faggy sidetrack. its demur fit in my hand, rounded edges and the small softened and undulating monochrome representations centered on page after page tumbled me down its hole. this hole and the one that followed in the orange catalog, sucked me into their lovely delicate apprehension of the perverse multiplicity which emanates in and out of the codified world we more commonly acknowledge as true. that simplistic world is not as it seems, we do secretly know this and battle it with the false idealism of advertising, sameness, fashion, activity, personal hygiene products, and such things as visits to psychiatrists and meds. yet despite all that it frequently phones us back. kinke always takes the call. she’s with it, logging the message and passing it on. she keeps life full. she is not afraid.

as goddess is the love that nurtures and protects the universe, mother teaches her children, and artist exposes a truth.

think that each of kooi’s soft encapsulating lines is a thought. thoughts are sonic. it is now believed that sound travels faster than light. each thought has a frequency. the frequency is the information. the body understands this information before the intellect does. the body is constantly massaged by thoughts. the repetition of the line is vibration just as repetition of the thought forms a chant, an incantation, strengthening the communication. this is nourishment. this is mother. mother permeates everything. on a practical level, i think of kinke’s drawings as social responsibility, dripping with riches.

i like that she is so practical about her brutal honesty or that she is so brutally honest about her practicality to examine whatevers being denied, overlooked, neglected, hidden, and in need. she is a scientist, a photographer, an investigative reporter, a witch, beautician, psychoanalyst, cartoonist, stylist, whore, realtor, jeweler, gynecologist, moon worshipper, darkness, rain, air, fire...

vision is considered to be aggressive yet there is a mode of vision called the soft gaze where one can relax the hunting and be more passive and receive the information with fewer or few or no preconceptions. it allows intuition to pick up on what is really happening. should you have the grace to accept it, it is a way of examining by letting it happen to you. this is the way to enjoy a drawing by kinke kooi. i also think this is the how she comes to know what to evolve.

the enchanted and heightened kooi world whispers the ancient ever present future. her practice is benevolent and is all about the looseness of awareness. there are no secrets. it is both student and teacher, a way to understand, a guide to a denied world. the opening chest becomes the vagina and then the mouth, the anus, the eyes, the ears, and the tendrils of the skin. perfection is not static and contains all the possibilities. sincerely hudson, whats a woman to do?