Henrike Scholten is a visual artist and historian of artistic technique from The Netherlands.
Visual work:
In my artistic practice I work mostly on paper. My work investigates drawing as a process: I’m interested in mark-making, observing and rendering, using materials like color pencil and watercolor to dissolve the lines between disegno and colore. My recent work uses seventeenth-century visual culture as a starting point, combined with abstraction and improvisation, observations from real life, and pictorial clichés. The drawings refer to decorative and artistic printed materials, but also to the maps and board games that were sold in the form of prints.
By reinterpreting historical images using modern materials and visual strategies, my drawings interrogate the visual conventions of how we perceive images as representational. Doing so, my works add an ironic and feminist layer to art history.
Research:
In addition to my artistic practice, I am a PhD candidate in the ERC-funded project DURARE (Dynamics of the Durable: A History of Making Things Last in the Visual and Decorative Arts). My dissertation within DURARE examines material and cultural aspects to artistic durability in the long seventeenth century, based on a corpus of art-technical written sources. My project is about the cultural valuation and the materials and techniques of watercolor painting. In this project I use a blended method of art historical and hands-on material reconstruction research.
I graduated from Minerva Art Academy in Fine Art in 2011 and have since then worked and exhibited in the Netherlands and abroad. In 2020 I graduated from University of Groningen’s research master in Arts & Cultural Studies (Art History track, cum laude). In Groningen my ReMa research centered on the drawing albums from 1696 of Hendrick van Beaumont (1687-1707), a previously unknown draughtsman (publication TBA).
My research interests include drawing, materiality, the teaching and learning of technique, as well as the influence of social aspects like class, gender and age on artistic practices.
Over the years I have developed and taught various elective courses at the art academy, and have given many guest lectures, technical workshops and interactive artistic workshops. As a visual artist and researcher, I enjoy collaborating with others from various corners of the art & academic worlds.
Visual work:
In my artistic practice I work mostly on paper. My work investigates drawing as a process: I’m interested in mark-making, observing and rendering, using materials like color pencil and watercolor to dissolve the lines between disegno and colore. My recent work uses seventeenth-century visual culture as a starting point, combined with abstraction and improvisation, observations from real life, and pictorial clichés. The drawings refer to decorative and artistic printed materials, but also to the maps and board games that were sold in the form of prints.
By reinterpreting historical images using modern materials and visual strategies, my drawings interrogate the visual conventions of how we perceive images as representational. Doing so, my works add an ironic and feminist layer to art history.
Research:
In addition to my artistic practice, I am a PhD candidate in the ERC-funded project DURARE (Dynamics of the Durable: A History of Making Things Last in the Visual and Decorative Arts). My dissertation within DURARE examines material and cultural aspects to artistic durability in the long seventeenth century, based on a corpus of art-technical written sources. My project is about the cultural valuation and the materials and techniques of watercolor painting. In this project I use a blended method of art historical and hands-on material reconstruction research.
I graduated from Minerva Art Academy in Fine Art in 2011 and have since then worked and exhibited in the Netherlands and abroad. In 2020 I graduated from University of Groningen’s research master in Arts & Cultural Studies (Art History track, cum laude). In Groningen my ReMa research centered on the drawing albums from 1696 of Hendrick van Beaumont (1687-1707), a previously unknown draughtsman (publication TBA).
My research interests include drawing, materiality, the teaching and learning of technique, as well as the influence of social aspects like class, gender and age on artistic practices.
Over the years I have developed and taught various elective courses at the art academy, and have given many guest lectures, technical workshops and interactive artistic workshops. As a visual artist and researcher, I enjoy collaborating with others from various corners of the art & academic worlds.
News
11 June 2024
Presenting an upcoming artistic research collaboration with David Habets and DURARE on lichen paints at the Theatrum Anatomicum in WAAG, Amsterdam. Part of the Werkconferentie Kunst x Wetenschap x Samenleving.
24-26 May 2024
Presenting with Lara Benevides and E.A.T. collective in Stichting WEP, Groningen.
4 April 2024
Presenting with DURARE team on the first OSK Technical Art History Days at Utrecht University. A spoken presentation about the project and hands-on demonstrations about different aspects of our research.
29 February 2024
Guest workshop Painting for University College Utrecht’s Introduction to Art History course
25-31 March 2024
Artist in Residence at Extrapool, Nijmegen (NL). Some Fire to Melt these Icy Icy New Beginnings .
Week-long residency with E.A.T. Collective, around the theme of edible documentation. Hands-on experimentation with edible paper, food-based inks, and how to transform an art space in a kitchen and vice versa. Included two partipatory public events.
31 January - 4 February 2024
The E.A.T. collective was presented at Art Rotterdam’s Prospects exhibition, this time I was present as performer.
11 December 2023
Guest lecture for Research Master course Art & Knowledge, Utrecht University
10 October 2023
Guest lecture at Utrecht Univeristy BA course Kijken met Andere Ogen
29 September 2023
Workshop Materialen in het vroegmoderne kunstenaarsatelier for Utrecht University Centre for Early Modern Studies (UUCEMS) Publieksdag
Summer/autumn 2023 - now
Excited to join the mostly Groningen-based Edible Actions Together (E.A.T.) Collective, an initiative of Lola Diaz Cantoni. We are an open group of mostly artists with various backgrounds and connections to food, academia, theatre, etc.
As part of this collective I explore the history, esthetics and materiality of food in an open-ended and informal way, apart from my regular artistic practice and academic work.
7 September 2023
DURARE team presentation at NICAS Colloquium
29 July - 12 August 2023
Participated in the Summer Institute for Netherlandish Art, organized by Rijksmuseum, RKD, Center for Netherlandish Art at MFA Boston and the Harvard Art Museums.
2-8 July 2023
Participated in part two of the NIKI/Custodia seminar The Art of Drawing, held at Fondation Custodia in Paris.
13 April 2023
Lecture about my academic research at Groningen University’s PhD Colloquium
24 March - 6 April 2023
Group exhibition: SALON at Stichting WEP
Opening 24 March, 17:00
24 February 2023
Duo exhibition: Allie van Altena and Henrike Scholten
SEEN #6 at Stichting WEP
Opening 24 February, 20:00 - 23:00
February 2023
Co-teaching a Project Week at Minerva Academy, titled [De:Re] Drawing.
December 2022
Guest lecture at Minerva Academy for DKBV Art History course, about ways to look at seventeenth century art
November 2022
Art platform het resort asked me to contribute to IN A SERIES OF ESSAYS. My essay is the first of five investigations by artists and art professionals into the working conditions or ‘world’ of visual artists. Read my essay “De Kaas van Uccello. Stereotypen over kunstenaars” (NL) in the Dagblad van het Noorden newspaper.
The beautiful illustrations are by Marina Sulima. The project is made possible by Mondriaan Fonds.
November 2022
Presenting my academic research at the ICOM-CC Art Technological Source Research (ATSR) Working Group’s 9th Interim Meeting, held in Paris at the Panthéon Sorbonne.
Summer/Autumn 2022
How can drawing with a microscope kickstart your creative process? As part of the educational project Door de Lens van Anthoni I was asked to participate in two educational videos for children aged 10-12. Using Anthoni van Leeuwenhoek as a starting point, I demonstrated different ways of drawing from observation and imagination.
September 2022
Collaborative work as part of the DURARE research team:
I co-coordinated and led a hands-on workshop on discoloration and lichen-based paints in the Utrecht University ArtLab, as part of the OSK Sectiedag Atelierpraktijken en Geschiedenis van de Kunstproductie.
August - September 2022
Participated in the first edition of the NIKI/Custodia Seminar on The Art of Drawing, held at the Dutch Interuniversitary Art Historical Institute (NIKI) in Florence.
2022
Duo exhibition: Henrike Scholten & Sabine Liedtke
Curated by Wietske Lycklama à Nijenholt.
Part of SKEP @ Galerie Hoogenbosch
Opening 26 June, 15:00. Stationsweg 66, Gorredijk (NL, Friesland)
2022
Group exhibition: Anonyme Zeichner
Opening 17 June, 18:00. Galerie im Körnerpark, Schierker Strasse 8, 12051 Berlin-Neukölln (Germany)
Drawings for sale on location and online, from 20 June
2022
Group exhibition: Offline Exhibition, Omikron Edition
Tinimini Room
Opening 21 May, Blekersdijk 36, Dordrecht (NL)
Open on appointment
2022
Collaborative work as part of the DURARE research team:
Visual blog post for Het Geheugen van Geur (KNAW Young Academy Project)
Making Scents of The Past (EN) / Vervlogen Geuren Destilleren (NL)
The results can be smelled during the exhibition Constantijn Huygens. Geuren en Beelden at the museum, Huygens’ Hofwijck, 6 April – 3 July 2022.
2021
During the Covid lockdown I took part in Kunsthuis Syb and VHDG’s Connective Collective project, part of the Artist in Space talent development programme.
I was also asked to contribute an essay to their publication, which was beautifully designed by Michiel Teeuw.
2021
A co-written essay by Vanessa van ‘t Hoogt and myself was published in the journal Drawing: Research, Theory Practice. It describes a course we designed and taught at Minerva Art Academy.
Henrike Scholten and Vanessa van’t Hoogt. ‘Deconstructing instructions in the art academy’, in: Drawing: Research, Theory, Practice, 6:1, 2021. pp. 123–137
Contact me for a pdf.