About
Clipped images from newspapers and magazines form the fuel of Steenman’s practice. She puts them in folders with tags like: posing, settings, hiding, plants and man, shelters, tables, curtains. In her studio the questions that these images evoke get all the time and attention they need to transform into a shape that suits them. Together these outcomes form the endless and always fascinating story of what it means to be human.
Life comes with loss. But how does what is lost materialise? What is mourning?
Is it light, heavy, compact or fluffy? And if loss is part of life, why is it so hard to touch it, to hold it? Giene photographed all the shawls her mother left behind.
A life represented in silky fabrics, colours and patterns. After archiving, she dyed all the shawls black and sewed them into a lump, a soft, precious, black stone: loss objectified.
A dear friend died alone under his work-table on bare wooden floorboards. Steenman made a mattress with countless layers of leftover fabrics that she dyed deep indigo blue. A bed to comfort him and her own grief. It sounds simple, it is simple. But this simplicity holds an attractive complexity. The complexity of life itself. The beauty of it, the emptiness, the absurdity, the sadness.
And one thing leads to another. The soft precious shawl stone transformed into a series of massive, pencil drawn meteorites. Silently suspended in time and space. Silently suspended? Or are they tumbling with unimaginable speed through the dark void that surrounds us?
Giene Steenman observes, questions, reads, writes, collects, edits and questions again. This continuous flow results in different types of work: drawings, soft sculptures, books. Sometimes a notion, a thought, a list is the work; another time years of letting go, reflecting and try-outs are needed to get to the right outcome. ‘Art direction’ is maybe the most accurate description for what she does. Steenman seamlessly shifts between the field of fashion, teaching and autonomous work.
Erik Wong
I love looking at (pictures)
The only thing, funnily enough, that i never get tired of doing is looking at pictures.
Gertrude Stein: Lectures in America 1934
I love looking at (pictures)
The only thing, funnily enough, that i never get tired of doing is looking at pictures.
Gertrude Stein: Lectures in America 1934
Colophon
Giene Steenman: editing
Maaike Mulhof: digital architecture website
Erik Wong: about, studio talks
Bronwen Jones: proofreading
Aagje Martens, Annesas Appel: sparring partner
Pieter Aartsen, Klaartje Martens: thank you!
Contact
Giene Steenman
0031 6 27093811
gienesteenman@gmail.com
© Giene Steenman
Disclaimer. If you believe any material has been included improperly on this website, please contact Giene Steenman.
Giene Steenman (1962) studied at the AKI Academy of Art + Design. Lives and works in Haarlem, The Netherlands. Giene Steenman works besides self initiated work on commission as a Concept Maker, Editor, (Co-)Curator, Sparring partner often in the field of fashion. Since 1995 she has been connected to the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam.
CURRENT
Project: Islands, Stones, Textiles /
Drawing: Stones and other Masses /
Dialogues: Exchange of images and texts
PAST
Head of the TXT Department, Gerrit Rietveld Academy
Mentor Foundation year, Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam
Tutor at Fashion, Image and Language, Fine Art, TXT (Textile), Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam
Tutor Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam
Tutor at the Fashion Department, Royal Academy of Art, The Hague
Tutor at the Fashion Department, Minerva, Groningen
VISITING tutor
Hiko Mizuno Tokyo, AKI Enschede, Artez Product Design Arnhem, Nola Hatterman Institute Paramaribo
IN COMMISSION / IN COLLABORATION
Humanoid Arnhem, Annesas Appel, Arnhem Fashion Biënnale, Joke Robaard, Klaartje Martens, Emmeline de Mooij
© Giene Steenman
Disclaimer. If you believe any material has been included improperly on this website, please contact Giene Steenman.