Henk Visch (1950)
Henk Visch's love of language underlies the artist's ever-expanding oeuvre. Since 1980, he has been creating expressions of the world around him in sculptures, drawings and language. 'As an artist, you are working in a transient domain,' says Visch. 'You understand that everything exists for only an impossibly brief instant. Everything is a dream that's gone before you know it, a bird that sings and flies off. But it is at the heart of this transience that you find the moments that something is created. Those are the moments you want to capture. That's what art is.'*
Visch sculpts human figures, though they may consist of only a pair of legs. Yet his style is so recognisable they seem like members of an extended family as you come across them on the street, in gardens, or indoors. While his bronzes blend into the background, his drawings envelop it and jar the viewer's reality. Every Monday, Visch produces a drawing for author Kader Abdolah's column in national newspaper de Volkskrant. Just through this one small corner of the newspaper, Visch has built up a body of hundreds of drawings. He sets out his thoughts in bronze, wood, ink or paint without explaining them, preferring to take a detour towards what might be. An idea, a word, or perhaps a fleeting moment of nothing at all. 'Art reminds me of something that I didn't know yet,'** explains Visch.
* quotations from: A. Spaninks e.a., ‘Henk Visch: Het theater van de onbeweeglijken’
** Unlocked No [1] Kunstcollectie Rabobank Nederland, Eindhoven 2001, p. 65
