Family Fountains
A series of ink paintings exploring the concept of the family fountain.
The metaphor originates with coach and author Els van Steijn and builds upon the systemic work of therapist Bert Hellinger. The series emerges not from material properties, but from position: it explores the relationality between inner world, body, and space.
My practice always starts from a situation or a relationship. For this series, I posed myself one question: What would a family system look like if the metaphor of the 'family fountain' were given literal form?
Working with intense attention to the behavior of the material, and keeping different art-historical movements in mind as temporal references, I intuitively opened myself to various situations. Organ-like forms and their emotional abstractions developed gradually. Ultimately, the work took shape as a form in which the human nervous system and the flow of a fountain converge.
Installation view of the series.
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The Series - Nine ink paintings on watercolor paper (300 g), each 30 x 40 cm, 2023.
This work opened the series with a mixture of beetroot cooking water and black Chinese ink. I chose this material for its earthiness; the red hue evokes blood, mirroring how it flows through our veins and, by extension, through the family system itself.
Over time, the pigment fades and disappears from the paper. I have used this kind of temporal change—as the material itself alters over time—as a central element in my practice since its beginning. Here, the act of using this material initiated a process where the initial form would inevitably disappear, much like the invisible origins that shape patterns across generations remain unseen.
Family Fountain 1, Ink and beetroot cooking water on paper, 2023. Post-fading.
