Artist Statement
When I was a teenager, growing up in The Netherlands, I used to write little poems. A recurring theme for these poems were the depressive moods I struggled with in my teenage years. I never showed these poems to anyone, always kept them to myself. When I recently re-read these old poems, I decided to create something positive and beautiful with them instead of hiding them away.
Inspired by the poems I made etchings, each image illustrating and explaining the poem it accompanies. The poems are hand-typed (to refer to the fact that they were written more than 15 years ago) on transparent paper normally used for tracing patterns when sewing clothes. With this, the analogy with clothes becomes apparent, while the transparent paper also refers to the ‘veil’ that has covered my poems for so long and that is now lifted. Leafing through the book, the reader unveils each poem by turning the page, making visible the poem and the accompanying image. The images serve as ‘clothes’ for my ‘naked’ thoughts on paper. I first had to make these ‘clothes for my poems’, before I could share my hidden poems with the outside world, for everyone to read.
Artist Statement
No bright colours, no anthropomorphism, no Disney, no animation, but back to basics: simple, two dimensional, black and white images for children to use their imagination on and make their own stories with.
Biography
Rozemarijn Oudejans is a Dutch graphic artist and photographer, living and working in Ottawa, Canada since 2005. She was educated at the University of Utrecht and the Arnhem Academy of Art and Design in The Netherlands, and in Canada at the School of the Photographic Arts Ottawa and the Ottawa School of Art. In 2007 she received the Justine Bromiley Memorial Scholarship at the Ottawa School of Art for her photography and printmaking work. Rozemarijn is an active member of the Ottawa School of Art and Arts Ottawa East. Her works have been exhibited in Canada and The Netherlands and can be found in private collections internationally. To view more of Oudejans's work, go to www.rozemarijnoudejans.com.
