Maria van Elk

Topological Symmetry is called the work that Maria van Elk (1943) shows at the moment at Gallery Swart (Van Breestraat 23) in Amsterdam.
It looks more complicated than it is in reality. The term hails from mathematics and was declared completely relevant to the work of Maria van Elk by an expert. Trained at the department of painting of the Academy Minerva in Groningen, she worked for a time as autodidact with textile and developed herself with this in the Constructivistic direction. Since a number of years, she focusses completely on her drawings. In this she can realise ideas that she cannot elaborate in another way.
Last year she showed Five Minutes Drawings at Swart in which time played a role in the visual result. That probing for instance: how does it look if I, starting from a certain design, apply changes all the time, you will also find at this exhibition. She neither commits to a style nor to a form of aesthetics. It looks more as if she also is curious herself of the result, the image of her ideas. This time it's about the relation between a drawn black line and an equally long limp line, a black wire, fixed in mirror image. She expands this in very simple elementary figures like a square, a straight line, a rectangle or a triangle. Opposite the rigid figure she shows the informal free form of the dangling wire that, relative to the drawn lines, is fixed with a piece of tape. These are playful viewing exercises she also undertakes with her students of the AKI in Enschede.
Next to this informal work there are also shown sheets of graphical work by the America Richard Tuttle. The drawings look watercolour-like and are made up of colour layers. It is a very attractive series of random characters that resemble a secret alphabet.

Lithographer Freek Kuin was closely engaged in the 80s with the printing of the book Maria van Elk Drawing 1973 – 1980. One of the major challenges he was placed for then was the getting ready for print of the Topological Symmetries.

White paper with extremely fine threads with even more fine soft shadows and magnificently printed on white glossy photographic paper.

As the printer looks at this in the 80s a curt NJET follows. I would like to but it is technically almost impossible to convert this to raster photography.

The image has to be free from the background, or almost, but the so-called foot of the raster does not allow this.

As trainee at Johan Enschede and Sons I saw that lithographers had their own pots. No label of a known brand, but their own brew with which secret tricks were carried out. So also, the making freestanding with halftone retouch on the raster negative. Normally red earth was used which sealed everything like a slab of tar, but for this work of Maria van Elk white gloves and baby skins were required.

The halftone retouch had to be applied softly for 20 to 30 times with intervals to dry, only then you could get a soft development in your raster tints and shadows. Old times for sure, we now do it in an instant on the computer.

Freek Kuin, 2014 | Drukkerij robstolk^®