Claudia van Koolwijk: "I find correspondences in the people who surround me or who I meet."

Totentanz ©Claudia van Koolwijk

Claudia van Koolwijk's journey into art began at the age of 4. "Painting was a great enrichment, I was especially taken with the colours." She liked looking at her grandparents' paintings and when her mother's sister went to art school, she was allowed to paint with her. She eventually went to the art academy and studied with Prof. Fritz Schwegler and Prof. Alfonso Hüppi, whose master student she became, from 1981 to 1987. Her main focus was painting, but she became interested in photography early on, as she felt she could work more freely there.

Currently, the artist is working on a representation of her inspirations in the form of photographs of books and places, as her knowledge in photography, painting and performance is greater than when she started her career as an artist.

Juni 19, 2022

Interview Directory

ART, DÜSSELDORF

Name: Claudia van Koolwijk

Location: Lives in Mettmann near Düsseldorf

Occupation: Artist and photographer since the mid-1980s.

Biography: Studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy from 1981 to 1987 with Prof. Fritz Schwegler and Prof. Alfonso Hüppi, whose master student she became.

Where do you find your inspiration?

What interests me today and already accompanied me during my time at the academy was also the question of how artistic collaboration as a couple can succeed. That which makes the differences in experience and perception is at the same time the inspiration and friction. My father's delicate early photographs of my mother bear a strong resemblance to photographs of people dear to me.

My inspirations come from a wide variety of sources: what I've read, encounters and conversations, other cultures and places around the world, and animate and inanimate nature, which has inspired me in a special way ever since I studied biology.

A few years ago, I inherited my grandfather and father's photographic estate, both of which inspire me in different ways. When I visited the exhibitions at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, modern art came along, which amazed and inspired me Beuys, Richter, Ruthenbeck, Paik, Johannes Brus, Fluxus my two teachers Fritz Schwegler and Alfonso Hüppi, to whom I owe a lot.

How do you choose your models?

The photo shoots are in this sense as my professor Fritz Schwegler said at our last meeting two-man performance and the photos the documents of the approach of it. Often it is themes from theatre, nature, poetry and dance that occupy me. I find correspondences in the people who surround me or who I meet. It becomes clear to me that they carry or symbolise something that occupies me thematically.

You also work for commissioned work?

With commissioned works, I first spend more time with the person before I come to a conclusion. The longer I have thought about it, the more convincing is the interplay between the background, the person and myself, although many pictures look as if they were created spontaneously. The examination of the background, which is so important in portrait painting, is no less important to me than the examination of the model herself. I don't think I need the staging for my portraits, it's almost as if the real thing is the relationship with the subject.

On which projects can we look forward?

I am currently working on my catalogue raisonné, a book project on portraiture and several collaborations with other artists. After the book is completed, I would like to do a larger fabric work.