I.
THE NOTEBOOKS
When I look at your visual notebooks, they feel like diaries. Do you use them as a way of capturing images to work on, or do you use these images the way a person would write a journal entry?
KATRIEN: Actually, I see them more as books. From when I was very young, I kept pictures that I liked in notebooks. It started from there, but it was not like a diary. It was more about seeing pictures that I liked, and wanting to keep them and to glue them on paper as a reference or keepsake. But now of course, I have so many. It is not the same as my work. It is completely another work. It is together, but I see it completely differently because the notebooks always come after my work is completed. When I do the notebooks, I also stop thinking. It is like my hands are instruments. It is very strange to tell because the notebooks, Kaya, are more pure. They don’t need a canvas. They don’t need the paperbacks with the colors. When I do my work, I have to do the canvas, the old paper and I am looking for the colors. But my notebooks are very pure. It is very honest. I always compare them to a dancer. I always wanted to be a dancer when I was young. Dancers have a lot of training, concentration, and discipline. When you look at something on the stage, you forget how complex it is and how many hours of work it is. It seems so simple and spontaneous that you forget all the complexities. But of course I write and I read a lot of articles from the newspaper or various books. What I like always ends up in my books and the titles of my work come from my notebooks.
What is your creative process like when you are starting a piece?
KATRIEN: Creating brings me back to memories. Particularly my childhood memories. It helps me to get a grip on the demands placed on me and helps me to understand them a little bit better. Step by step. I need to do it every day, it is very natural to me and at the same time an obsession.
When I do the notebooks, I also stop thinking. It is like my hands are instruments.
The notebooks are more pure. It is very honest. I always compare them to a dancer.
II.
THE FORBIDDEN ALBUMS
Is there a particular reason why you choose magazines?
KATRIEN: I think it comes from a story when I was very young. My father has a lot of family albums with a lot of pictures. And I knew I could not touch them, let alone look at them. He didn’t like it. I wanted to compile my own albums in the same way that he did, but I did not have the material. I didn’t even have a camera. So I started to look in magazines. Then I started to put together my own books. This is where it comes from. Then the work grew with me. Puzzles started to come together.
Do you find this process therapeutic?
KATRIEN: The book I put together, “When I was a Boy,” was based on a true story. You see a lot of pink and blue. Boys and girls. Elegant women with long black hair. The village. This story was when I was young. Then I went to the expos and I showed the book, people have their own ideas. And if I tell my story about the book, it is very different. Because in the beginning, I did not have any particular theme to start. However, now I start with a theme and then begin to go with the flow in constructing the images. You can see this shift in my books “Why I Hate Cars” and “You Could at Least Pretend To Like Yellow.”
I knew I could not touch them, let alone look at them. He didn’t like it.
III.
PAST & PRESENT
What are your particular feelings about old images versus new? Do you think that old images carry a certain weight, texture or spirit that is hard to achieve in new images?
KATRIEN: I always like to go back to the basics. I like the tension between the present, the past, and the moment, and the future also. And I think, the present is what you know, right in the moment. Now, I look in a magazine and I enter a whole different history, a history that sometimes I don’t know. I read it and reread it again, and really study it. And then I take this history, and bring it back to the present moment, knowing that it will eventually move into a future that I don’t know. I know that I work with the past a lot, but it is happening now. It is also interesting that you discover a lot, it becomes a huge adventure. The feelings I have when I am going to the past is like traveling through these pictures and I can bring in my own moods and feelings. Then I make my own story again. At my exhibitions, people look at the work and bring their own stories. There is this Russian writer Svetlana Alexievich, who wrote “Voices from Chernobyl.” And she says, “My past no longer protects me. There aren’t any answers there. They were there before, but now they’re not. The future is destroying me, not the past.” When I read something like this, I can really go and create something. It is like the history of someone else in my experience now.
My past no longer protects me. There aren’t any answers there. They were there before, but now they’re not. The future is destroying me, not the past.
IV.
YOU COULD AT LEAST PRETEND TO LIKE YELLOW
How did the new life patterns during lockdown affect the way that you create? Did you create more? Was it a time of confusion and grief for you?
KATRIEN: As an artist, I like to work in my atelier and to be alone in silence. I do not like too many people around me. Covid was a heavy period. I moved from the city of Antwerp, and I went out to the country, back to my roots. So the movement was quite a big change for me. There was a sense of happiness. Before Covid, there was a lot of noise, smells in the city and everything was moving so fast. Then Covid arrived and I enjoyed it a lot, in the beginning. I loved it at first. I am really sorry to say so. I enjoyed a lot of silence and saw the people around me how they changed and took more time for themselves. I saw parents connecting with their children. You could hear the birds singing. The smell was gone.
In regards to my work, the book “You Could at Least Pretend to Like Yellow,” I made it during the Covid period because suddenly, the color yellow, this color was there. And yellow, I really don’t like that color at all. In fact, I hate it. It makes me think about jealousy, and distrust, yeah. I just don’t like it. Also, if you look into the translation of yellow and the feelings associated with it, there are things like loneliness there. I had a lot of thoughts of irritation, fear, and it ominously came into my work by accident. Because the work is quite dark. I did not see it in the beginning, but when I look again now, I see a lot of women naked… that have a strong desire to be in themselves, but also to be out of themselves. And you see that they need a lot of protection… safety. Also, if you look at the position of their figures, you see that they really need it. During Covid there was that feeling…what happened.
I enjoyed it a lot, in the beginning. I loved it at first. I am really sorry to say so.
I see a lot of women naked… that have a strong desire to be in themselves, but also to be out of themselves. And you see that they need a lot of protection.
V.
SOLITUDE & LOSS
So as the pandemic transitioned, how did you feel?
KATRIEN: When I moved back to the countryside, I saw my father, whom I have not seen for many years. We were in contact before, but only by telephone. Through Covid, I got to speak to him more and know him a little bit better. I would go to his house and I fell in love with my hometown again. There is a lot of poetry here in this little village. But then I lost my father to Covid in December of 2021, and it changed me a lot, because it was by surprise. With Covid, you cannot go to the hospital to talk with them, to caress them, to comfort them or just to give a hand. It is always just a zoom meeting. My Papa was like 82 years old. He was a very positive and energetic man, a very strong man. Me and my husband thought, yes, he will come through, he is very tough. It really hurt because I could not go to him. It changed me very much. I am a little bit angry. It was so fast, I was angry, I was in disbelief. After so many years, I come back to my roots and now this happens. Woooo I have a lot of questions Kaya. Still, today, I don’t know how this happened. I did not make any new work around that, but I think it will heal me to do something based on him.
After your father’s passing, how are you now?
KATRIEN: Moving was already a big experience on its own, from the city to the country. And you don’t know what it will be like. But the second part, woof. From December until now, I have been working very hard. I sometimes work work work, perhaps to forget, but I work a lot. These are also the words my father would say, “Keep focused on your work. When my spirit is gone, think about me, but take care about your work.” So I try to do my work, the best I can. I think this is also my positivity, to do the work as well as I can. I cannot hide the feelings or memories. You can’t do anything without memories, also the hidden memories.
With Covid, you cannot go to the hospital to talk with them, to caress them, to comfort them or just to give a hand. It is always just a zoom meeting.
Keep focused on your work. When my spirit is gone, think about me, but take care about your work.
Woooo I have a lot of questions Kaya.
When Katrien was young, her father kept family albums she could not touch. She made her own albums from magazines instead—other people’s photographs, other people’s histories, assembled into something that felt like hers. The forbidden archive became the origin of everything.
During Covid, she moved back to her village and reconnected with her father after many years of only speaking by phone. She fell in love with the village again, with its poetry, with the silence that replaced the city’s noise and smells. Solitude was bliss—birds singing, parents connecting with children, time slowing down enough to breathe.
Then in December 2021, her father died of Covid. She could not go to him. Could not touch him, caress him, comfort him. Only Zoom meetings. The same deprivation that started everything—not being allowed to touch, to look—repeated itself at the end.
The book she made during this time, You Could at Least Pretend to Like Yellow, is full of naked women who need protection. They want to be in themselves but also to be out of themselves. Yellow—the color she hates, associated with jealousy, distrust, loneliness—appeared by accident. Or maybe not by accident. Maybe the body knows what it needs to make before the mind does.
She hasn’t made work about her father’s death yet. “I think it will heal me to do something based on him,” she said. His last words to her: “Keep focused on your work. When my spirit is gone, think about me, but take care about your work.”
The fragrance Solitude is Bliss was created during this time, when solitude was both refuge and loss, both silence and absence. There’s something clean and nostalgic. But also something darker underneath: the weight of things buried.
Katrien is still working. Work work work, maybe to forget, maybe to remember. You can’t do anything without memories, she says. Also the hidden ones.
SCENT NOTES:
Bergamot, Mandarin, Cedrat, Green Apple, Orange Blossom, Ginger, Animalic Musk, Oakmoss, Tonka, Cedarwood, Musk.
FÀP – Essays: Profile / Katrien De Blauwer / Solitude is Bliss
50ml Eau de Parfum
01 / 2021
Artist: Katrien De Blauwer
Based in Ronse, Belgium
