Out in the courtyard at the Museum of Goa,
environmental artist Karin van der Molen is fashioning more than just a penny
for our thoughts. “It’s ‘A Bubble of Thoughts,” explains this environmental
artist. An enormous bubble, in a series of bubbles, is taking shape, but one
that Karin envisages can be completed only with people’s participation. “I
started this sculpture last week and I am not sure when I will stop. But the
sculpture will be complete only when people are standing with their heads
inside the bubble and each one will complete it in their own way,” explains
Karin of the coconut fibre creation replete with wire for the bubble formation.
But to fully grasp the meaning and purpose of Karin’s
work, one needs to revisit her early beginnings and fascination with nature. “I
always loved to work with my hands and the advent of the computer intruded on
this. By the 1990s, I began to paint and also made the transition from the city
to the countryside. The confrontation with nature all around challenged me to
answer with installations in nature. Initially, it was very difficult to
acclimatise to country life and it took me a long time to get into the rhythm,
but as I did, I slowly evolved into an environmental artist where I could shape
things with my hands,” explains this Netherlands based artist who still dabbles
in graphic design and video.
Over the last decade, her work has evolved into
site-specific art. “I work with natural items, with whatever material I find at
the site. Usually I take time to study and experience the location where the
artwork is going to be made. I try to find the entrance to that place, and find
out how to formulate an artistic answer to it. There are several central themes
that keep on intriguing me in my artwork. They provide a fuel to extend a
certain work into a series of sculptures, paintings and video. But the most important
theme is the human relationship with nature. The use of natural materials in
sculpture was a discovery for me. Working with the materials that nature
offered seemed to me to be the way to deepen my relationship with nature even
further,” she elaborates.
In the process of using natural materials for her site
specific work, she urges herself and others to get closer to or to even enter
nature, like her present installation at MOG. “The outcome is often a sculpture
in which one can enter, either physically or mentally, (such
as Moonstruck, Kiev, 2012, where I suspended a large sphere of woven hay
between the birches. It had an opening into which people could poke their head
in, to be all alone in a world of grass),” she says, envisaging a
similar response to her present work.
“We are constantly in a bubble of thoughts and find it
hard to focus. This installation is a mirror to that. Once you put your head in,
you cannot see anything and in the process you are allowed to focus on your
thoughts. Some people may view it as a beautiful or funny piece of work and yet
there are some who might catch on to the actual meaning,” avers Karin whose
ultimate aim of environmental art is to create awareness about man’s
relationship with nature. Her participation in international art exhibitions
since 2005 has helped to further this percept. “The work also influenced my
perception of nature and sparked new ideas and visions which in turn, prompted
me to begin to integrate non-natural materials.
Karin invites you to stick your head into ‘A Bubble of
Thoughts’ at MOG where she will be creating a series of bubbles till January 20,
2016.
