Koen Doodeman
Koen Doodeman lives and works in Amsterdam with his wife and two-year-old daughter in a modest house that beautifully combines living and working areas. He also has a studio on the other side of the city where he can work on larger projects.
When asked about the effects of the pandemic, Koen says:
It has certainly had an impact on my work. Textiles is very much about tactility…and painting, too, is connected to the physical perception. Now, with the social distancing, the importance of tangibility and physicality has become even more important to me and more present in my work. Because, in our daily lives, there is a lack of it right now.
Koen has been busy during the pandemic with his solo exhibition “Non Radar” which has been running until recently at the Gerhard Hofland Gallery in Amsterdam. You can read about it here.
Had he been able to come to the residency in 2020 as planned, it would have been a time to escape the city and fully connect with nature in an open-ended manner, enabling full immersion in his artistic process.
The Irish countryside would have been a much-welcomed break from the dense city. Staying at Carraig-na-gCat would have given me a sense of spaciousness, which I think would impact my work. Apart from that, a residency always provides the opportunity for contemplation...I imagine myself in the Irish landscapes, gazing at the ocean, scanning the horizon looking for whales, walking, reading, writing…
