Art's nature
What does art mean to you?
What a good warming up question! It's a way of expressing my fascination for nature. That's what making art is about, to me. Looking to art is to me about feeling amazed about things, to make me think about things.
And how did you find your own way in art?
It was a long path. It started when I was young, on elementary school. I read a book about a boy who wanted to learn drawing and the only one in the village who could teach him was a very strange woman. He chose to take lessons with her. After reading that, I knew what to do.
Are you the strange woman of the story, then?
The woman where I took drawing lessons was also a bit strange, in the sense of an artist and therefore different. I was like the boy.
And where does this fascination for nature come from?
Nature... I grew up just outside the village. We had a big garden around our house and there were fields with corps. My father is the son of a farmer and my mother is a gardener. They told me everything about nature and crops.
What do you think is our relationship with the natural environment? Do you think we missed our natural link with the environment?
Yes, I think we do sometimes. Like when I forgot to look out of the window to see the sky because I'm working or when people don't know what crops are growing in the field.
And what kind of consequences we suffer because of that in your opinion?
I feel empty when I'm not in contact with nature. I feel I've missed something important.
Our lack of contact with nature can be seen in the urbanism in our cities. Architecture is also present in your artwork.
In what way do you see architecture in my work?
Installations and gardens in which you play with space and shapes. There is a very interesting contrast between geometry and natural shapes in some of your works. That makes me think of architecture and urbanism.
I understand and you are right. I always have the need of making work in a certain scale, so you can have the feeling to be part of it. When I'm making an artwork it's always related to the interieur, to the place. The scale is related to a garden, a field, the roadside.
I'm very interested in the game you create between geometry and nature. They are apparently opposites, but, for example, bees create perfect hexagons. What does this contrast of shapes represent for you?
The geometry in my printing is based on architecture forms, like paving stones and bricks. In one of my works titled “Stadsgerst”, translated: City barley, there is a plant that looks like a crop, but it is a variant which is growing all over the city. I was searching to combine city and plants and so I came on the forms.
Your art refers me to cultures closely linked to nature: Africa, Japan ... but also to abstract art. However, your art connects with our interior in an instantaneous and serene way. Your art comes to us naturally, precisely. Why do you think one can connect so directly to your work?
I think that is because of the scale. The plants are real, so the scale is the same in the print. It also is because of the details of the plants. It looks like a photo in a way. And maybe also because of my working method. I work as thoughtless as possible.
That also gives us peace of mind.
Like nature. The compositions of my work always look spontaneous and I never take into account that the print becomes the mirror image of what I make on the plate.
About your creative process, you said you made everything as thoughtless as possible. What more could you explain about it?
It's a game between looking very good at what you’re making and a lot of coincidence, a controlled coincidence.
Controlled? Not spontaneous?
Controlled in a way that I know certain things/ outcomes trough experience but in that knowing still be spontaneous. Does that make sense to you?
Lot of sense. And how do you select the plants to work with?
That's an intuitive process. I chose nettles because I wanted to work with something a bit dangerous, a plant which is disliked. Mostly I choose plants because they are around me and they can be missed outside. I don't want to harm nature.
That "dangerous" aspect I find is especially interesting.
Maybe dangerous is not the best word for it. Better it’s... Nettles give a feeling of ... you don't want to be pricked by them. In some way it is repulsive. But it is also a plant to love. You can make really a good soup from it.
So not "dangerous" but "repulsive". Your artwork transmits completely different feelings. Somehow you are expressing that there is always something beautiful inside nature.
Something good, even inside those repulsive plants. There is always a good and bad side of things.
So is there a bad side in arts?
Bad side in arts? No, I don't think so. Only bad art.
And what would be bad art for you?
When it's poorly executed, when you see no skills. And when it's more conceptual the idea has to be good!
You also teach courses. What role does education play in our artistic and ecological sensibilities?
Teaching is about learning to look closer to the things. To love. You don't need much more to be happy. It's about appreciating things and also about the joy of making.
Do you think we all would be happier if the artistic expression was a part of our daily life?
Yes. And you see it all over the world. Are there people who do nothing with art, in the broadest sense? I think everybody is expressing, with music or writing or art or gardening, being creative. I think we are happier when we are creative.
Western society seems to push us as adults to give importance to economic and not psychological benefit.
That's a difficult topic. It has to be in balance.
Somehow your art invites us to connect to our inner being.
How does it to you?
In my opinion it is sane to express yourself and take time for it. Art, including the whole creative process, more than the final work, is a perfect way for that and your artwork is a perfect expression of that. Even more when you transform "repulsive" plants into beauty.
Talking about our inner being, could you explain a dream you had while sleeping?
I dreamed about going to the barber, because I’m donating my hair to make wigs for children with a disease that causes their hair to fall out. But it's not related to my art work.
I have also a question for you. You chose one of my works as image for the magazine. Could you tell a bit more about your choice?
Because it makes me think of Japanese culture but also because red is my favourite colour and due to the feeling of movement which is so important for me. I identify movement with pleasure, freedom, life.
This work is about the contradiction between red and green. But it is also about that plant in particular because it is a big problem for nature, an invasive exotic plant. But I love it because as a child I had a cabin under it. And it's funny you were asking about contradictions in my work. This work can well be placed in that context.
An interview by Juan Carlos Romero
All works by Roos Terra
For further information about the artist please visit roosterra.nl
Photo courtesy of Roos Terra
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