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Drawing projects:
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ARTICLE BY SANDRA MACKUS / 2026
In Museum Belvédère, Heerenveen/Oranjewoud, the Netherlands, I speak with artist Egbarta Veenhuizen (Oostzaan, 1953), who combines a monumental drawing installation with intimate works on paper in her exhibition *Op Groenland*. She drew her inspiration from memories, drawings, and photographs from her own travels, as well as from the book *De profeten in de Eeuwigheidsfjord* (2012) by Kim Leine. I had seen the drawing installation before, in a different form and under a different title, during an exhibition at Pulchri Studio in The Hague. It turns out to be a characteristic part of her working method: cutting and snipping, to subsequently feel the freedom and intuitively explore new paths. A long road preceded this before Veenhuizen allowed herself this freedom. For forty years, she worked in psychiatry, first as a drama therapist and later also as an art therapist. In the 1980s, alongside her busy job, she pursued evening studies at the Academie Minerva. ‘Those were tough years,’ she says. ‘Initially, I wanted to focus on sculpting, but I got the impression that I am quite clumsy. Those are the kinds of assumptions stemming from my childhood because I am left-handed. After a general year, I then opted for printmaking and drawing, and eventually I graduated in painting.’ The artist still does not position herself exclusively as a draughtsman or painter, because her oeuvre features a rich diversity of materials and disciplines. ‘I usually describe myself as a visual artist, because I have used so many different disciplines. At the beginning of my career, I mainly created spatial work — including bronze sculptures — but I have also made photo collages, paintings, drawings, and drawing installations.’ It is the human being in an existential sense that has long been central to her work. Although she did not always immediately acknowledge the connection to her work as a creative therapist, she seems to have cautiously accepted it by now. ‘I have observed, seen, spoken to, and described people for so long — it is inevitable that this has had, and still has, an influence.’ For a long time, I built a sort of wall between my work as a therapist and my visual artistry, because it caused a lot of confusion. It was complicated.’ By engaging in visual art, Veenhuizen actually detaches herself from her surroundings. ‘When I am working, I am thrown back upon myself. That awareness, that focus, detaching yourself – that essentially stands for freedom. For me, it is a very physical process: by making contact with materials, by feeling.’ While she had intensive contact with people for years in her work as a therapist, in her visual work she actually longs for solitude. Already during her time at the academy, she applied for a travel and study grant to go to Mexico. She needed change, time alone, and the challenge of holding her own outside her busy life in the Netherlands. ‘I needed a different environment, to break out and to do so alone,’ she explains. ‘For me, it was about the entire adventure, about entering the unknown.’ Her curiosity about other cultures and intuitive artists led her to South America. Ultimately, she painted the works with which she graduated there. It turns out not to be the last trip that inspired her. ‘My partner is a documentary photographer and traveled frequently for that. We traveled together. While he was photographing intensively for his books, I visited exhibitions and gathered impressions.’ Around the time she made her first trip to Greenland, Veenhuizen decided to start working thematically. ‘Until 2010, I worked mainly freely, intuitively, and associatively. I was free in terms of material and way of thinking. I let myself be guided very much by the process itself.’ The choice to work more thematically coincided with a sabbatical year (2010/11). ‘For that year, I wanted to have a clear plan so as not to waste precious time. I also wanted to be able to explain the work better to myself. So I decided to link my work to a book. In the end, I did that with three books.’ For instance, in preparation for her trip to Greenland, she read the book by Kim Leine, which she has since read several times. Her thematic approach also raises doubts. ‘Every now and then I thought: where has my intuitive, spontaneous action gone? With that thematic work, you gain something, but you also lose something.’ Yet absurd, associative elements still creep into her work—moments when something unexpected presents itself. That freedom is also expressed in her unconventional use of materials: for example, she uses synthetic hair, which she has incorporated into her work in an intuitive way. However, she found true liberation once again in the act of doing itself—in cutting, snipping, and tearing. From 2020 onwards, she decided to give in to that ever-present need to cut, to literally detach the representation from its surroundings. My work is very versatile and consists mainly of drawings, collages, assemblages, and spatial work. The human figures and identity are mostly the subject of my work, portraits are a continuous theme. I mostly creates drawn collages/cut out figures and portraits. The inspiration comes from romans, historical events and travelling. I`m drawing often mise en scènes and portraits. I recently made an installation in Museum Veere, Zeeland (2022) from two panels made of poplar wood. A drawn collage with Mary Stuart, the daugther of the Scottish king James de First as a resource of inspiration. NARRATIVE In 1444, she married Wolfert van Borssele, she was 14 years old when it happened. It was normal in that generation for girls to marry very young (and the reason mainly being financial win). This work shows Mary`s fear of drowning, flood disasters and the unknown about the stranger and his family in the so called `Lowlands`that flooded in 1422. In 2020, I made a series of works on thin wood: cut-outs (a term used by Henri Matisse and Jonathan Borofsky in the 80`s). Cutting into paper or other materials, is always a pleasure to me. It creates this illusion of space and results into a depth effect. . In the period of 2015-2018, my partner Dolph Kessler (documentary photographer, www.dolphkessler.nl) and I worked on a drawing project around the Amelander whaler Hidde Dirks Kat who in 1777, shipwrecked at the coast of Greenland. (Ameland is an island). His crew and him were resuesd by the Inuit. In his diary, he writes kindly about the people (Inuit) who saved him. During this project, I expanded the theme to the whole Arctic world, a place I`ve visited multiple times. The inspiration for another project is the Dutch book `The prophets of the Eternity fjord`by Kim Leine. This book consists of a series with life-sized drawings: a procession of women Inuits and other kinds of people,they met Danish missionaries. Through these encounters/confrontations, the isolation in which they lived in, has gradually been lifted. These series of big figures was shown in 2019 in the theatre `De Lawei`in Drachten, Netherlands, with the title: `At home in the cold`. The theme is about the travels I made to Arctic places: Alaska (2009), Iceland (2012) and Greenland (2015, 2018 and 2019) and in 2006 I went to Antartica. The place is also known as the land of the so called `midnight sun` since Antarctica is in the Arctic Circle for most part. The name `arctic`is a reference to the star signs the big bear and the little bear. Arctos is Greek for bear. In 2017, I created a set of big drawings about iconic figures in Arctic landscapes like `The explorer` and `The Universal Soldier`(140 x 100 cm). Extra focus went to the women the were significant fot the areas like Greenland Greenland and the North Pole. I created series of drawings about courageous women who have travelled to the North Pole and Greenland like Bernice Notenboom, Louise Arner Boyd and Barbara Hillary. There were more than live-sized. In 2019 I made a project, specially for an Art route:`Into the wetlands` with Carole Witteveen, which existed of three big panels, drawings, and a live-sized statue of Seamus Heaney. This famous Irish poet wrote the poem `Digging`and `New Selected poems 1966-1989.`These poems were the inspiration for this project and, of course, special for me because I`m often in Ireland. This is an interesting review of a large drawing of mine! It`s a long time ago but still interesting to read. Review from the blog of villa Repubblika by Bertus Pieters following his visit to the Summerexhibition in the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague. See PROJECTS: ICONIC FIGURES 2015- 1017 / LOST IN THE LANDSCAPE`/ work on paper, 2011, 140 x 140 cm. Coll: Annety Werther, Amsterdam In `Lost in the landscape, a drawing in a nice large format by Egbarta Veenhuizen, two-hare like creatures sit not exactly very `jauntily`in an landscape that also does not reallly look like a peaceful `turnip garden`either - as in the familiar Dutch children`s song. The two large hares look like toys and appear wooden yet moveable and most definitely not cuddly. It is not clear if these wooden hares are of a sympathetic disposition or perhaps up to no good. So much seems to be able to emanate from these uncanny creatures. This is emphasized by the way one of the hares bends over the small white bunny. But its is not only the drawing itself that matters here. It is equally important how the picture is made, how the story is told. In such a large drawing, where the white of the paper is so notably present, it is actually rather astonishing how many different drawing techniques have been used. Look at the robust way the contours of the hares have been drawn, how splendid and detailed the head of the sitting hare has been worked with the grey-blue pupil in the white of his eye and his quasi-smiling muzzle. Look at the strange rubbed out structures and the contours of the bending hare with the white bunny beneath him. But look also at the difference between the haystack-like surface around it and the beautiful deep perpective inclined towards the hills that lie behind it with the blue above as a final touch. The nice thing is that all of this happens quite unemphatically. No stress is laid on the technique, but that technique is in fact present everywhere in the drawing and results in a wondrous whole. |
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