Imke Plattel artist Amsterdam
When we visit an exhibition, or when you see an artist’s work for the first time, you can feel the joy when that work has its own essence. It does not need explaining: it speaks for itself. You just see it. You recognise something, there is something bundled up in it, something lived through. It provides, as it were, an answer in this time and space. That’s the beauty: it having its own intrinsic quality. This certainly applies in the case of the works of Imke Plattel.Still, it is interesting to know a bit about her background and motivations. I came across Imke’s work a few years ago and started following her career. Her energy, her dexterity, her lively brush strokes: it all intrigued me. What struck me most in the end was her unusual subject, which has remained hidden for a long time. It was present, but only on a subconscious level, and it needed its own time to develop and emerge.It all started for Imke in Italy. During her studies at the academy of monumental art, she went to Pompeii with Kees Peterse, an architect-archaeologist who she later married. She assisted him in taking measurements for reconstructions of ancient houses. This type of work, where everything has to be precisely measured and accurately recorded, demands a fact-based approach.
However, this disciplined way of working stands in contrast to the extraordinary play of light as it passes over the ancient stucco walls. The bright sunlight also gives rise to deep shadows, to an intense light/dark contrast that is constantly in motion. It beguiles you, and you don't really know what you’re looking at anymore, making it even seem as if the thousand-years’ old stones are shifting. So, there’s the factuality of those measurements, that’s still present, and that is a factual approach to the space, and yet, beyond that, there is this light that has a life of its own. And those are actually two contrasting aspects..
The amazing thing is that Imke did not realise this at the time; however, this experience has had its effect. Reflecting on this matter herself, Imke says:
‘That spot of light moves very slowly across that wall and touches all kinds of reliefs and details. At a certain moment that spot disappears on an open dark plane in an open dark space. That element, the appearing and disappearing, the effect of that span of time needed to make that visible. This experience has been a profound source of orientation in my work.’
Only later did Imke understand that this would be a permanent subject interwoven in her very being. After her studies, after trekking around America and Australia, she ultimately settled in Amsterdam. At the time, her work was strongly influenced by architecture, the stacking of stones, by stairs, traces of obscured cultures, and urban design patterns. The factuality and intellectual approach to the space was still there. She was still searching.
Only when she regularly visited Zeeland, where she had a studio by the sea and could observe the changes in the light from one day to the next, did Imke understand that she had, unknowingly, actually been carrying her motif with her for a long time. The mystery of light, time and space, the light that carries the form within it and which, for her, became a very abstract given.
The sea nourished her, just as her experience in Pompeii had done in the past. The amazing thing is that Imke regularly visits the mountains in Switzerland. The awe for those mountains, the unapproachable, apparently also inspires her to touch upon the grand interplay of forces. The enormous scale, the elusive light, the oceanic. That interplay of forces can also, however, be seen in the minute, and she discerns and reflects that as well. It brings us full circle to that spot of light: an advancing, vibrating luminous apparition on a wall.
Spots of light are not just spots: they are a definition of space and time; they form a ‘handwriting’, one which she has made her own through her brush technique.
At some point it’s like breath, it's going somewhere. It’s going somewhere like a rolling glass marble. A marble, which we used to find so pretty: how the light in the rolling marble created the vibrancy of reflective colours and shapes in motion, which were then reflected back onto the space over which it rolled. It scintillated through the agency of the external forces.Painting is a physical process; it is not a film or video where the images follow each other to create movement. In painting the image eventually comes to a standstill, and when you, as a viewer, look at a work, it will, if all goes well, continue its motion within you.
Joop Hulskamp 2021
‘Imke Plattel’s images are formed by partially overlapping transparent layers of paint. They create a patina of the past, comparable to the centuries-old colours, tints and shades you see in archaeological structures that have been exposed fragment by fragment, allowing us to appreciate the coexistence of historical cultural horizons. As a message emerging from these images, the overlaying of elements can be seen as a fundamental problem of culture: behind every layer in the image and behind every symbol there is another, older layer – a primal symbol.’
Karla Bilangkunsthistorica Berlijn