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