+++Utwrydsk pietsjanke fokkema+++

+++Kie Ellens, pietsjanke fokkema+++

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‘In 2013, I made the small text-drawing  Mem is yn ’t ljocht, in response to the death of my mother. This drawing initiated my work for the installation Utwrydsk. It was the starting point for new developments, with works emerging one from another. I entered into ‘dialogue’ with my mother and her relatives, including my namesakes. (…) Working on the commission and exhibiting the installation, with my mother as its focus, was, for me, transformative. It clarified my solidarity and my autonomy. The same holds true for creating the book Utwrydsk. In the book, I have reorganised and rearranged the drawings and have told the story again, in a different way. I am interested in connections and establishing relationships.’ - pietsjanke fokkema

The book Utwrydsk is an artist book by Dutch artist pietsjanke fokkema (1960). It is a genealogical research in to the maternal line of the artist. On 20 November 2013, Kie Ellens, curator of contemporary art at the Fries Museum, and author of this book, visited Fokkema studio. Instead of buying a work, he proposed the small drawing Mem is yn't ljochtshould be the starting point of a commission. The result, the installation with the same title as this book, Utwrydsk,was exhibited at the Fries Museum from 4 November through 31 December 2017.

‘The word útwrydsk came to me; suddenly it was there. I didn’t recognise it; to me, it was a strange, Frisian word. It means ‘outrageous, exceptional’, ‘foreign’. It seemed right to me. The unusual sound and the unfamiliarity of the word give the word the function of a name.’

'Utwrydsk was an investigation and adventure: I looked, pursued and allowed things to happen.’ - pietsjanke fokkema

pietsjanke fokkema studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. Her work has been included in, among others, the collections of the Fries Museum (Leeuwarden) and Teylers Museum (Haarlem) and various private collections. Her work has been displayed in various solo and group exhibitions in the Netherlands, Spain and the United States. Since 2003, she has received several grants from the Mondriaan Fund.