English

Art and artist

The everyday boring?

Not for Heleen van Tilburg. Precisely in what appears carelessly -rust on a container, weathered posters or clutter on the counter – she discovers beauty.  She puts that in digital pictures.  After editing in Photoshop abstract forms and textures. They look painted. Daily stuff has been transformed info abstract worlds. They challenge the viewer to see and experience their own associations and stories.  

               “In the beginning I only wanted to understand what Heleen had photographed. When I could let that go, I looked uninhibited and started to give the images my own story and meaning. Thanks!

Jeroen Hindriks, director of Draumlist agency

Heleen van Tilburg has graduated in social sciences and worked for 25 years as an independent textwriter and advisor. Now she is an artist.

At the age of 16 Heleen buys her first camera from the money she earns with her first holiday job. From that time on she takes pictures from the unusual. When everybody is photographing the medieval cathedral, Heleen is more interested in the rusty pole before it. 

Years later the pictures become more than just a snapshot. Heleen wants to develop and starts an individual learning traject with fotocoach Jos Ruijssenaars. Of course she learns a lot about technique, but most of all she discovers her own signature: transforming the hidden beauty of weathered materials into abstract art. Making pictures as if they’re painted. This learning process culminates in a solo-exhibition in  Frame.de.galerie and a solo during 033Fotostad, both in 2016.  

In the next step Heleen wants to develop the expression of her photos. She also wants to discover how to develop a concept. Until now she takes individual lessons with Margareth Degeling, international artist and director of museum MAC House in Leusden. This process is leading to solo-exhibitions about citywalls in Italy and Leusden. 

“Learning is nog saying enough about everything I learn and learned with Jos and Margareth. We have intense encounters about art as element of life and about the vulnerabilities and strenghts of creating and putting these creations into the world.  Discoveries, frustrations, standstill and leaps forward are all part of that process. It’s fantastic and rich to develop my art with these inspired professionals and warm personalities”, according to Heleen. 

Heleen gets her inspiration from life itself, and from material artists and artists from Cobra and abstract expressionists, like Armando, Jean Dubuffet, Paul den Hollander, Antoni Tapies, Aaron Siskind and Robert Zandvliet.