Art in the Landscape

A selection from the work of Femke van Dam.
For more pictures visit the permanent exhibition in the reception room of the Garden of Time.

Delicate mirrors in the wood

The very small and a little bit larger pieces of mirror on trees in the wood absorb the visitors in their game of light and surprise with their changing perspectives. The work is interactive, sice the observer himself or herself creates the work by moving, keeping distance or coming closer. In this way the mirrors on the bark act as holes in the tree and at the same time as small nature films.

 

Schoonoord (NL), Jaujac (France), Turku (Finland), Bippen (Germany), Copponex (France), Tytsjerk (NL), Chartres (France), Aarhus (Denmark)

Large works of mirror

Large mirrors capture the sunlight and the reflection on their surroundings moves with the orbit of the sun during the day.
The reflection of the wave on the bank of the small river Reest creates underwater the shape of a heart.
The colums of the House of Plato carry the delusion of the day in newspapers, and use mathematics for a trial to catch the ´truth´. The real observation appears from the watching itself.
A Ziggurat is an antique staircase pyramid. Here it is  built from newspapers and mirrors, a reference to the soil archive.

 

Zuidhorn (Nederland), IJhorst (Nederland), Tuin van de Tijd

Traces of time

A third track in my work is the use of waste and found objects. Used milk containers, old original documents and soil samples from the municipality of Tynaarloget a place in art that expresses transitoriness. The slipping away of time and longing for what was ever cherished.

 

Assen en Amsterdam (NL), Wittingen (Germany), Zeerijp (NL), Tynaarlo (NL), Tuin van de Tijd

Boats as carriages of Time

In many cultures the transition from day tot night, from life to death, is expressed by boats. Old tales of Egyptians, Greeks, Celts and Vikingstell such stories.

In the Garden of Time you will find boats is various appearances: built from glacial boulders from the surrounding, from zinc tubs, filled with water, and from luminous perspex, modeled after a hieroglyfe in a pyramid in Egypt. And from wire netting , in memory of a boat that after an exhibition in Assen, now sails tot the sunset of June 21 in the Garden of Time.

 

Orvelte (NL), Assen (NL), Garden of Time

Text in the Landscape

Square pieces of mirror constitute sturdy letters, almost 2 meters tall. They are recycled to new texts, inspired by the surroundings where they are laid.

 

Villeneuve Lez Avignon (France), Tytsjerk (NL), Zeerijp (NL), Gorinchem (NL)