Written by Josée Thissen-Rojer.

Until December 17^th, Godelieve Smulders exhibits in Gallery Alma Blou, with the exhibition ‘Moveshon’ (Movement). Godelieve has a playful view of the world, and she shows that in her artworks. Therefore, this exhibition is highly recommended.

Godelieve Smulders was educated at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and the State Academy of Art, both in Amsterdam. She has been visiting Curaçao regularly for 4 years now, and in 2019 a sculpture by Godelieve, titled ‘Giving birth’, is already added to Herman van Bergen’s Cathedral of Thorns.

‘Giving birth’ is made of openwork cardboard that’s reinforced with synthetic resin. It’s a sober image of a squatting woman holding the new life she’s created. At night, when the cathedral is lit up, the light reflects off the sculpture’s white colored resin. This causes its contours to fade, and the resulting shadows give the plastic a mysterious shape.

Godelieve is trained as a sculptor, but she calls herself an all-round artist. In her studio in Amsterdam, she makes drawings, paintings, large installations, and international projects in addition to sculptures. An artist she admires is the versatile Armando (1929-2018) but her personal source of inspiration is vitality, or life force. That’s why her images are not stiff and rigid. In fact, they are figures of people or animals in motion, ‘caught’ mid-action. Just like her statue ‘Giving birth’, in which the woman grabs the head of her baby between her legs. For Godelieve, childbirth is the pinnacle of vitality.

Moveshon in Gallery Alma Blou is Godelieve’s first solo exhibition in Curaçao, but already her seventh exhibition of this year. In the Netherlands, she has already participated in 6 exhibitions during the year, in different cities. Due to the pandemic, many exhibitions were canceled in the Netherlands in 2020. As a result, this year there is a lot of catching up to do in the art galleries.

Moveshon consists of sculptures, paintings and drawings, and the collection is very colorful. Some statues are created in color, and are green, red, or orange. But it’s especially the paintings on the wall in which Godelieve expresses her love for color and contrast. The bright orange of the figures in some of her paintings contrasts sharply with the deep blue of the background. Her ‘cloud paintings’, on the other hand, are created in different shades of blue.

Curaçao fascinates Godelieve above all because of its warm atmosphere, and its clear sky with spectacular clouds. Godelieve likes to look at the clouds. Due to the strong winds, the clouds change shape so quickly that it looks like a movie to her. It’s especially the transformations of clouds that fascinate her so much. She sees all kinds of things happening and often sees human figures in them. The clouds in her paintings are often the two figures lying together and the paintings offer a veiled sensuality. Just like the clouds, people are always in motion and life itself is one big movement. Hence the title of her exhibition, ‘Moveshon’.

An image that immediately stands out is the ‘Humanimal’, created in emerald green. The title is a combination of the English ‘human’ and ‘animal’. Two figures with horse heads are ‘caught’ in some kind of twisting movement, and it looks like a type of dance or fighting movement. “Actually, these are two courting figures,” explains Godelieve. The horse’s head is a symbolic reference to the relationship between humans and animals. She believes that humans place themselves too high above nature. For Godelieve, the relationship between humans and animals is actually a relationship of equality and mutual dependence. As an example, she points to the current pandemic, in which an invisible virus holds the world in its grip. The two courting figures in her sculpture represent the unity between man and animal.

Her images in the exhibition are slender and open. You can often put your hand through it or, as Godelieve puts it: “A bird should be able to fly through it.” In her larger, monumental works, she ensures that you can stand or walk in between them, so that the work envelops you. At the end of the eighties of the last century, for example, after a journey through Africa, she made a 6-meter-high sculpture of straw and willow branches, entitled ‘Tempio Temporale’. It was set up in the garden of the Centraal Museum in Utrecht. It was expressly her intention that visitors would also walk under it in order to be enveloped by the work.

In 2018, Godelieve places a gigantic hand with spread fingers on the front terrace of Gallery Alma Blou. In the palm of the hand a large circle is cut out and outlined with white color. Godelieve places a wide red stripe in the middle of the circle. The sculpture is Godelieve’s stop sign against rape. The hole in the hand symbolizes the destructive power of sexual violence. The sculpture is part of her No Rape project. Rape occurs in every country, also on Curaçao, Godelieve knows. For her, it’s the greatest destroyer of vitality.

Curaçao fascinates her enormously, but she feels that she still knows too little about the island to form a good picture of it. She’s now learning to speak Papiamentu and she spoke the salutations of her opening speech for ‘Moveshon’ in Papiamentu. Godelieve also hopes to get in touch with more fellow artists on the island and would like to exchange ideas with them. She finds that the works of art she sees from local colleagues are surprising, authentic and colorful.

Godelieve has no definite plans for the new year. In addition to her personal work and participation in exhibitions, she regularly receives assignments from both public and private clients. She does hope that in 2022 she can set up a social art project, such as the ‘No Rape’, in which she wants to involve several local artists. Godelieve sees that there are many social problems, partly due to the pandemic. For her, art is also a means of opening up topics for discussion, and for reaching and helping people.

This post was made possible by the financial support of Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds Caribisch Gebied.
Previously published in Amigoe: December 14, 2021. Photographs by Ken Wong.

This text, in whole or part, may only be reproduced with reference to the source: Curaçao Art®️, www.curacao-art.com, and the author. Copyright of the artworks remains the property of the artist.