Abstract painter and ceramist Carmel Van Der Hoeven is among Aotearoa’s brightest creative talents, known for her down to earth nature and striking paintings (and sizeable social media following).
Verve sat down with Carmel ahead of her upcoming show, Mortal Dreams, to be hosted by Turua Gallery who picked up the self-taught artist “three days before they shut down the country”.
I ask if the lockdowns were a productive time for her.
“I feel the last two and a half years has just been such a blur it’s hard to remember!” says Carmel. “I’ve managed to reach some really huge peaks in my career, I got married, all these things while living under massive amounts of stress in a really intense lifestyle situation.”
Does such an environment affect your use of colour?
“Definitely. People often react with joy to my paintings because of the flowers, but there’s a component that’s the opposite of that. I paint life because I think about death. They push each other in different directions, you can’t have one without the other. I don’t often paint death, but it’s definitely been thought about far too much in the last couple of years.”
Hence the title Mortal Dreams?
“Yes, that is part of it. The dream stuff is just, I suppose, how far I could take it away from reality. Whether it’s paintings of gardens or houses, when you look closer, it’s nothing like real life. That’s what dreams are like. You’re never your normal self in dreams, but during them you think it’s perfectly normal that the wall is moving or that you’re flying or whatever it may be. And once you’re out of the dream, it’s like, ‘whoa! What was that?’ I like to play off these conflicts.”
Though dreams don’t always inspire her painting directly, Carmel reveals that there is often a “subconscious aspect” to it: “There’s no real pre-planning except for the base colour, which will dictate the direction. But even then, I’m very reactive as a painter.” Once a work’s complete, the artist says that there’s “a sense of abandonment” when it’s time to stop. “It’s a problem for most artists. I can always go back to paintings I’ve seen in people’s homes and go ‘oh, goodness. I could have done more there!’ I always appreciate the artist that can do more minimal pieces. For me, it’s just a feeling really.”
I ask if Carmel revisits her work often, either for inspiration or to self-critique. Or if she believes once it’s done, it’s time to move on. She knows what sells, she says, but any attempts to recreate or copy her own work “looks stagnant” because she’s “trying to represent something that came from a certain place of me”. “That’s why I don’t do commissions anymore. I cannot do it. It will not come out the way I think it will come out. My painting is intuitive.”
Carmel’s Waikato childhood home was an encouraging and creative one, “always painting, always chopping things up”. “I was one of those kids making a mess everywhere. Both my grandmothers painted, and we’re from a large butcher family who are, in their own ways with food, creative.” Carmel’s sister’s flower farm further helped harness the artist’s connection to the natural environment which takes shape in so many of her works.
“I like how nature represents time,” she reflects. “How time changes for the seasons. Things die, particularly flowers. They’re a great example of dying, and living, and moments, and rebirth, and all that goes with them. When I paint nature, I can use all the colours and there are no restrictions. I get to represent time within my own paintings. You can see the actual physical work that went into them, every mark. I guess they tie into each other. I probably will think back on that later in life, my connection to it. There’s something there. I’m just not 100% sure what it is yet.”
“When I paint nature, I can use all the colours and there are no restrictions.”
I ask if she enjoys answering specific questions behind the meanings of her paintings.
She does, she says, want people to understand where she’s coming from, but also wants them “to just enjoy the paintings for whatever reason they enjoy them”.
“It’s strange being an artist. You know the people are at the exhibitions for your work, and you somehow have to detangle yourself from it. Otherwise, it becomes an ego thing and it’s about you. They’re generally not there to see me or meet me. They’re there for this other stuff, which is now not part of me anymore because it’s up there on the wall.”
And once on someone’s wall, it no longer belongs to Carmel, she has “given it away”.
“I do start using a different language then,” says the artist. “I say ‘your piece’, not ‘my work in your home’.
“I think I have one small piece in our house. Most of the other stuff is just bits and pieces that I’ve done over the years. I collect other artists now.”
Carmel’s next exhibition, Mortal Dreams, opens on 18 November at a secret Auckland location to be announced on 4 November.
Find out more at turuagallery.co.nz and follow the artist on Instagram @carmelvanderhoeven.
