In The House (2014 onwards) Anya Janssen distorts a linear experience of time. She lets the past coincide with the present and by doing so she tells the tale of a house. The villa and park she lives in also form the subject of her studies. The location itself has been marked by a turbulent and long history. The first residents were a wealthy family from the city of Arnhem.
Then the house was
transformed into a monastery for the 'Sisters of Love', only to end up asthe
headquarters for the German SS. In 1944 the house was bombed and destroyed
during Operation Market Garden. Janssen adopted the thought that memories and
events attach themselves to physical locations, and from this perspective she
has studied the history of this place. She doesn't want to describe consecutive
events in a chronological way, but sees them appear simultaneously on location.
A compressed image of time is created by layering both time and event in a
deja-vu like experience. By interviewing residents, searching through various
archives and even with the help of a Scottish medium she tries to unwrap and interpret these
layered images of time.
Janssen's work tells
tales through impressions. In series of narrative paintings and drawings she achieves
a very intimate, direct relationship with her subject matter. The painted
objects, bodies and places are given a simmering tension below the painterly
surface. Her meticulous style lets her imbue lifeless objects with a balanced
sense of both whim and resignation. She uses the word 'begeesterd' or spirited for
the essence of the physical world that she captures. Objects carry a multitude
of meanings within them and the mere fact of their existence makes them into
carriers of the past and the future. By using distortion, transparency and an alienating
light Janssen translates reality and all its facets to the canvas. The House is
not just a wondrous telling of history. The series shows a coming and leaving
of life, contrasted with
the existing moment. Janssen describes how every new group of inhabitants drops
a new layer of meaning on top of the tangible reality of the house.
Thoughts of beauty,
violence and decay are projected onto lifeless objects until they are imprinted
with the impression of meaning. The objects themselves remain without life, but
become animated witnesses of humanity. These traces of use, specific points of
time anchored to a place or object, stand testament of the relativity of a
human life. Within an indeterminate span of time we can influence the world
around us, but all we do is subject to an unstoppable entropy.
This relativity, the
idea that time only starts with the experience of it, is supported by the time theories
of Gilles Deleuze. He describes the appearance of an image of time as looking through
the facets of a cut crystal. Every experience of the present is split in the
conservation of the past, the multiple potentiality of the future and moment which
lets them both coincide. The ideas of this French philosopher serve as source
of inspiration for The House.
That which we
experience as 'seeing' actually is an amalgam of factual observation, virtual memory
and subconscious projection. For Janssen, this thought opens up the potential
for esoteric and metaphysical descriptions. This in turn explains her use of
the Scottish medium John Johnsson, whose findings are included in the
exhibition as an audio recording.
Anya Janssen lives and
works in Arnhem, the Netherlands. She is represented by TORCH gallery
Amsterdam. Her work is exhibited worldwide and part of several collections,
including the Museum of Modern Art in Arnhem, DELA, ABN/AMRO, Diesel, Delta
Loyd, Ohra and Menzis. The House will travel to multiple museums and venues as
a travelling exhibition.
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