Harmke Datema-Chang in her studio, 2022
Fragile forms and dimensions, often robust materials, One of the most fascinating sculptures in the sculpture exhibition 'Voorhout Monumentaal 2023' (June/August 2023) on the Lange Voorhout in The Hague, was 'Capturing Further Dimensions' by Dutch artist Harmke Datema-Chang. Harmke makes sculptures, paintings, and drawings. From December 16, 2023, to January 14, 2024, Harmke will show a selection of her recent paintings in Pulchri Studio's Klinkenberg galleries. On September 27, 2023, I spoke to her in Utrecht about her work and her upcoming exhibition.
Harmke Datema-Chang (1980) graduated from the Utrecht School of the Arts (HKU) in 2008, majoring in Illustration, and from the Amsterdam School of the Arts in 2018 with a 'Master' in Art Education. She worked as an assistant set and props for VPRO youth television for several years before becoming a full-time artist. She lives and works alternately in the Netherlands and Mexico City.
Sculptor and painter
Harmke sees illustration as something broad and autonomous: "I graduated from HKU with a combination of alienating animations. The Centraal Museum Utrecht bought that work, which motivated me to build an installation around the animations. I then started building maquettes, which suited me very well. After that, I was asked a lot for temporary installations at festivals, which in turn led to commissions for work in public spaces, such as transforming Amsterdam subway carriages into a 'moving garden.'"
According to her, the combination sculptor/painter is somewhat contradictory: "I am still in love with sculpting, but when I have an idea for a sculpture in public space, it sometimes takes (due to municipal permits, for example) up to a year to realize it,. In contrast, with paintings I have an enormous amount of freedom."
Harmke has researched biological elements and bodies and depicts fictional micro- and macrobiological worlds in her works: intriguing visual applications of materials, shapes, and dimensions, such as droplets, leaves, bodies, and wings. She starts each project with a large number of drawings: "I noticed that I could realize more and more my own visual language. I started to make more and more sculptures and learned more and more about the properties of materials on a large scale and how best to use them.
Sculptures
Harmke does not only make sculptures, but in recent years she has become known for her often meter-high sculptures in public spaces. Some older sculptures she still executes in Lexan (a strong and impact-resistant polycarbonate), concrete bricks, and wood. Since then she has worked mostly in steel, which usually has a sleek, industrial look, but Harmke takes on a feminine touch with striking curved forms: "With a sculpture, I want to perfect an ideal image I have in my head - but at the same time I like to keep adding other materials to gain new knowledge. I find it valuable when viewers add additional stories to my work with their associations."
- You make use of peculiarities of the landscape in sculptures like 'Cloud Tree' (2014): it stands in a pond of the Bornsche Beekpark in Borne (near Hengelo).
"'Cloud Tree' was my first work in public space.
It is so transparent that the water is almost absorbed into the image, evoking associations with a fountain. This creates a virtual world."
The colors of several of her sculptures are bright and unnatural, evoking a sense of alienation. Organic and feminine delicate forms are made of steel, a solid and hard material, combined with epoxy (cast resin), as in the sculpture "Captivating an Invisible Life" (2021) in Lisse.
That wonder also arises from the symbiosis her artworks enter into with nature or other public spaces, such as the sculpture "When The Tree Keeps His Wings"(2015) on the traffic circle in Almkerk (North Brabant). Harmke would like to experiment with the combination of steel and glass in her next work.
Making paintings in Mexico and the Netherlands
In Pulchri, Harmke Datema Chang is going to show exclusively paintings from the last three years, mostly made in Mexico. The paintings shown all have a link to microbiological research: " My paintings arise intuitively. The added 'unreachable' background gives the canvases a 3D-like illusion. I find it very special that my paintings travel from Mexico to be exhibited elsewhere in different locations, like now in Pulchri Studio."[that displacement actually adds an illusion to the work].
- Do you make different work in Mexico than in the Netherlands?
"I do see that difference, I work in Mexico in different colors and with different paint, in a different environment. In Utrecht I have a very quiet studio by the water, at most you can hear the occasional grebe. When you wake up in Mexico City, you hear very different sounds around you! In my studio in Mexico City, I constantly hear police sirens and screaming people around, it's a noisy metropolis of millions. "
Harmke always adds the placeholder "MX" or "NL" to her signature on the canvases; her titles are alternately in Spanish, Dutch, and English:
"Ultimately, a certain mystery must linger around each artwork. The viewer's associations give the works an additional story."Harmke is a member of the Mexican-Dutch artist community 'NoEsUnaGaleria': "In my opinion, as an artist you should not only look at your own career, it is very important for artists to reflect on each other's work; I myself am growing as an artist and I see the development of colleagues like Daniël Martin and Santiago Pani around me. I have been working with artists in Mexico City (the "community") for several years. We see each other there every day in our studios, we eat together and parties are held. In Mexico, we often exhibit together. That has benefited me very much, as you can see in my paintings of the last few years, which are now on display in Pulchri Studio. I am promoting 'NoEsUnaGaleria' in the Netherlands: works by artists from this community were on display during 'Intense Mexico' (2019-2020) at the Cobra Museum of Modern Art in Amstelveen, among others. In addition, in 2022, 'NoEsUnaGaleria' organized the art auction 'Buy or Burn, as part of the international music festival 'Le Guess Who' in Utrecht."
Harmke is happy to show her "unknown side," the paintings, in the beautiful halls of Pulchri: "At my exhibition, I am going to show a short documentary by fellow artist Frances Rompas (www.francesrompas.nl) for which she followed me while painting.
