about

 

Since 2010 Carolien Scholtes makes photo- and videoworks. She builds setups in her studio, photographs or films them and destroys them again. Her work touches on feelings of pain and time in an inimitable way but thereafter escapes them. 
You could say that there are two currents in her work.
One is more involved with the violent and absurdistic sides of society and the other deals with the world of the unspeakable, 
In 2008 she suffered brain damage, which put a stop to her work and life as it was.
Until that time she worked as a scenographer, film maker, initiator of multidisciplinary projects and teacher at the Gerrit Rietveldacademie in Amsterdam.  In her current autonomous work, elements of the previously used disciplines play a major role.

Her work is included in the collections of Boymans van Beuningen, de Amsterdam UMC kunstcollectie and Fondation Custodia in Parijs.

Scholtes projects have always been endorced by werkbeurzen en projectsubsidies by Het Fonds van Beeldende Kunsten, Vormgeving en Bouwkunst, Fonds voor de Podiumkunsten en het Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst.

Artist curator Martin Fenne about Scholtes (2023):
'The impulse to analyze the theater as a machine that stages drama brings to light the deeper structures of the 'mise en scene'. And then it turns out that the drama can also take place there when the materials and props  play their own role and our associative capacity is called upon.
This impulse has everything to do with the desire to be in and with the world. Time and again, material resistance is consciously sought out and deployed'

In responce to the series Dear Mr Schwitters (2018):
'The process starts by acting from existing knowledge. From my experience as a scenographer and a director, I know what it takes to create a strong image.
I start with a rough design. I choose the background materials, usually bits of carpet, lino and the like. Then the objects are added. Those have been more or less organized according to their colour and material: elastic, thread, wooden boxes that fit together. I don’t use the objects in a conventional manner, but focus on their associative power. Their significance follows from their interrelationship. I knead the lino and little by little a connection with my chosen theme manifests itself.
I get rid of anything that’s too easily interpreted and therefore downgrades the image, and of anything I find too pretty or aesthetic. But the opposite also happens, when I retain what is beautiful or significant. I constantly create snares and pitfalls for myself.
And then I decide to tilt the image – and everything falls into place.
Gravity is losing ground, which creates space. Space between levels of significance, carrying memories of chaos and pain, which ultimately, in the course of the working process, become universal.
This is also the moment that the image becomes independent.'