Sara van der Heide (1977)
With transparent layers of paint, Sara van der Heide composes colourful paintings with a cinematic atmosphere and a low vanishing point. Virtually invites the viewer to come and rummage through the fiction, image, topicality and personal stories that she brings together on her canvases. The meaning of a nationality is a major theme in Van der Heide's work. Born in Korea, she grew up in the Netherlands. The understanding that her identity could very easily have been shaped somewhere else proves to be a powerful driver in her work. The artist has an uncanny knack for isolating with crystal-clear clarity what our conventions are and where the exceptions lie. Being different and living with multiple identities has made her sensitive to the loners, the people who move on the fringe.*
While on an artist-in-residence fellowship in New York in 2007, Van der Heide immersed herself in iconic subjects like King Kong and Kafka's unfinished novel Amerika, creating canvases that contain both images and story elements alluding to the expectations of the immigrant in the land of eternal promise.** Alienation, uprooting, and the pursuit of fashion are all there. Her image stories open the viewer's eyes, as if each moment can turn into a new, timeless reality.
* F. Holtrop, ‘Ik besta officieel niet’, De Groene Amsterdammer, 18.08.2006
** www.depont.nl
