“There is a nakedness about this art, something is exposed to the bone. Their sensations of animated form may suggest otherwise… Before our eyes we see fabrics (a product of craft and spirit) undergo infinity small mutations. Ellemers’ art touches the point where material becomes spirit.“

Mark Kremer | writer curator
Abstraction and intimacy | publication HIDDE VAN SEGGELEN | March 2021

As an artist, those who choose to limit their means will discover more and more possibilities within them. Carina Ellemers (1965) is a painter without paint. That is not entirely true, for now and then she does apply a little paint to her canvases, but more to emphasize that the canvas can do without it. You can hardly catch her making pictures. That is not to say that her work is abstract. As a material, the canvas is primarily what it is and thus a confirmation of what we see. At the same time, as a painting it is a negation of what we think we perceive. It is always more than that. She practices a form of painting where she gets the most out of the least possible.

Alex de Vries | writer curator
Studio Visit: Carina Ellemers – A painter without paint | Mister Motley Sept. 23, 2019

Carina Ellemers’ work moves between the world of tactility and caressability, on the one hand, and that of cool abstraction, on the other. We see that the often shiny fabrics have a warm appearance. From a distance, if you are not already familiar with her work, you have no idea that it is made of fabric. That it is composed of small pieces, often of the same fabric, stitched together and pulled around a muslin frame creating a twist in the fabric. They are no longer neat little squares, but squares and angled rectangles. To make it even more confusing, some of the works are painted, but in such a way that even the paint looks velvety. Carina manages to apply different media in such a way that it falls within a long Dutch tradition of abstract art, but is innovative in its use of materials. Carina has found a way to make cool abstraction seductive and sensual.

Diana Wind | formerly director Stedelijk Museum Schiedam

Studies for a simpler life.

How sensual can a painted square be? In the case of Carina Ellemers: very much so. Her geometric forms have a materiality you want to touch.

… For Ellemers, a painting is a window on the world. Like paintings were before we had photography, television or computer screens. Sometimes that is very literal and you can actually see through it. Her paintings on cheesecloth are transparent like a voile. The cross on the back of the stretcher is visible but so is the wall behind it. Both become part of the image, with irregularities, bumps and knots and all.

The painter is originally a filmmaker. That past resonates in her choice of words. When she talks about composition, she says “framing. And for her, painting equals editing.

What she arranges and rearranges on her canvases are geometric patterns. In that, she does follow Mondrian. She stands in an abstract minimalist tradition. With a black square, she winks at Malevich’s absolute zero. Her patterns that resemble household textiles call to mind the work of Daan van Golden. But with Ellemers, the squares, stripes or even a crack – simple, small representations – take on something earthy and sensual. For they are not only flat but also surface. And you have to control yourself as a viewer not to stroke them for a moment.

That tactile quality is a consequence of Ellemers’ working method. She stretches and stretches the canvas on the stretcher until the material begins to ‘speak’. Sometimes she takes it off again and stretches it in a different way. The painting is massaged to life, as it were.

In the past, these works could sometimes be quite large, up to two by two and a half meters. Lately, the sizes are much more modest. …Her new paintings are studies for a simpler, lighter life….­­­

Edo Dijksterhuis | journalist
Parool 2018