Art and authenticity
Meet Carmel Van Der Hoeven, the mind behind George Sand Studio, writes Anabela Rea.
Young artist and mother Carmel Van Der Hoeven has a penchant for what’s real. Both an abstract painter and a ceramicist, the 30-year-old said: ‘‘I like authenticity and transparency. I can’t be anything other than what I am.’’
Endowed with a good balance of humour and realism, she described her outlook as a ‘‘celebration of life’’ in all its messy glory.
‘‘I love life, living, everything about life,’’ she said.
‘‘Every time I do paintings, things like the fact that were all going to die, does register with me quite strongly. And instead of focusing on that, I want to focus on capturing life and movement, and the chaos and the intensity of everything.’’
This artist is a woman grounded in practicality. Born in Te Awamutu and raised in Hamilton, she now lives on a lifestyle block at the picturesque foot of Mount Pirongia with her partner Luke and two children, Bonnie, 10, and Van, 4.
The daughter of a butcher, she recalled becoming acquainted with the realities of life early on by walking through a chiller full of carcasses.
She’s enchanted by the opportunity to learn new things and loves the knowledge required for processes like turning a animal skin into a hide rug, or clay into a vase.
‘‘I suppose that’s why I went into pottery and I’ve never shied away from it,’’ she said. ‘‘I like understanding why things are or how they work.’’
Van Der Hoeven is hands on. Not long ago she taught herself to tan her own animal hides. ‘‘We killed some sheep that had the most amazing wool and I thought, ‘I’m going to learn how to do this.’’’
‘‘There’s this huge process, it’s just like pottery. It’s an organic substance and we’re stabilising it to become inorganic.’’
Art wasn’t a vocation she out to have via tertiary study. Rather, her art has ‘‘blossomed from her’’, as she and her family have grown.
Painting and life drawing since a young teen, Van Der Hoeven said art was ‘‘just about the only class’’ she took in her final years at school.
Then despite briefly wanting to be a chef, she went to study fashion in New Plymouth for a short time. Life had other plans however, and Van Der Hoeven ditched fashion design and took up painting again at 20 while pregnant with her first child.
Being a young mum in her 20s with a strong creative yearning, she felt ‘‘really bored and really lost.’’ ‘‘I’d had sort of 10 years of not finding a career or doing anything,’’ she said.
But the painting continued, and four years ago when pregnant with child No. 2, Van Der Hoeven got her first real break selling baby animal illustrations through Auckland gallery Endemic World.
Not long after this and one night ‘‘on the wheel’’ at a friend’s house, she started night-classes at the Waikato Society of Potters. Ceramics provided an outlet from the family and another outlet for expression.
Now she’s hooked on making and the continual learning required for glazing and firing.
Functionality is at the heart of her ceramic designs. Her love of food and cooking fuelled her foray into making serving-ware, which she produces from the end of the garage at home.
‘‘As originally an artist, I should have gone into sculpture, but I haven’t actually done any sculpture,’’ she said. ‘‘I went into food and plates.’’
What’s come of all of this is that she now runs her own business, George Sand Studio, offering art, illustrations and ceramics. A relatively reclusive artist, she prefers to wholesale directly to stores or do private commissions.
Painting-wise, Van Der Hoeven creates everything from largescale abstract expressionist pieces to contemporary still life.
Feelings of boredom are a memory and painting particularly, offers freedom.
‘‘I like the idea of trying to capture movement,’’ she said. ‘‘A lot of the time I work instinctually, I’m not over-thinking things too much.’’
And as for George Sand? He doesn’t actually exist - and he is a she.
The 18th-century writer was a feminist figure of her time, and was otherwise known as Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin. Van Der Hoeven took up the name for her brand on the suggestion of her mother.
‘‘I looked her up and she had the most amazing life; she left her husband; she had two kids; she had an affair with Chopin; she used to dress up as a man and go into their men’s clubs, and the reason she was called George Sand was so she could write books.’’
Van Der Hoeven plans to carry the torch forward and push boundaries with her painted artworks.
Intentionally matching ceramic and painting combinations by Van Der Hoeven have only been a recent development. Often her works appear to be matching but, in fact, are not.
Painting and illustrating nudes, male and female, with the goal of empowering people and their feelings towards their bodies, is another area she plans to expand in.
Reactions, chemical or colourful, remain a theme.
‘‘I can like even an ugly colour, like a mustardy brown if it’s put well with the opposite of its colour wheel compatriot,’’ she said.
‘‘I love every colour – depending on what it’s put next to, they can go well together. They react with each other.’’