Geraldine van Heemstra
committee member
Geraldine has gained an MA in Art History at the University of Utrecht, a Diploma in the Conservation of Easel Paintings at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London and pursued a career in Conservation in the museum world. Since 2002 she has focused on her own art practice and is currently studying for an MA in Fine Art at City & Guilds of London ArtSchool, graduating in September 2019.
In her work Geraldine van Heemstra invites chance elements to resonate through her process. The external forces in nature and the unpredictability it brings, is what drives her.
With strong connections to the landscape, in particular to that of the Scottish Hebrides, she explores the experiential nature of sound and movement in the materiality of mark-making. Her recent drawing and etching devices are made from found objects such as dried heather, rope, stones and string and can move in the wind. These devices become part of her physical presence during her walks through the hills, like an extra limb, and intensify the experience of being in a space rather than offering a specific image of a place, finding a synergy of movement, space and body in the automatic and gestural mark-making.