KIM STREUR
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	<INFO <WORK nederlands	“Reality has revealed itself to us as a continuous becoming. It develops or disintegrates, but it is never an accomplished fact.” Henri Bergson While drawing, memories and thoughts condense into concrete images. At times, in not more than a few sharp pencil lines; but then again in heavy black pastel-crayon or dark inkblots. They appear on paper in isolation and evoke associations with all kinds of narratives, from old myths and dark fairy tales to recent stories. I fix the images in paper templates. Experiments with the material and the resulting unexpected possibilities further propel the work. I print the templates with strongly diluted ink, immerge the sheets of paper completely in dark ink and experiment with imprints of vegetation. While working, the carefully captured images become more and more affected. They disappear, dissolve in ink which flows in all directions and dries in patterns which are not predictable. But as soon as the ink has dried, the silhouettes of the templates glimmer as shadows through the surface and traces of earlier pencil drawings become visible again. They evoke new associations. I draw them on blank sheets, or in white lines across the old images, like a graphic version of the codex rescriptus – a recycled piece of parchment, on which old handwriting often shines through underneath the new text. This - almost ritual – process is essential to my work. It is a cadence of capture, disarray, disappear, appear and capture. Shapes and memories develop, change and transform. The rhythm of capturing and releasing reflects not only the elusiveness of my own, individual memory and imagination, but also of a cultural undercurrent of 'shared' stories. Perhaps the dynamics of my work allow for comparison with the narrative 'stream of consciousness' technique in which human thought is depicted as a continuous flow of ideas, observations and memories; information is offered patchily, sometimes with interrupted phrases. The drawn images and template prints do not relate to time or space. They are fragments, parts of a larger entity. They find their coherence in wall paintings of stacked images, in rows and in blocks of densely hung drawings and vegetation-prints. 2012 Into the Woods   The hiker who enters the woods on his own, will soon be overwhelmed by nature. Surrounded by vegetation he will become keenly aware of his thoughts and memories, and an inner world will open up. In this natural way, the woods accommodates two opposite realities. Dark and chaotic the wood represents the area of the unconscious, the unknown. The hiker may penetrate deeper and deeper into this realm, where wandering becomes an end in itself. Working with ink and vegetation and close to the paper, I’m moving through an imaginary landscape. Experiments with the material push the journey ever further. A variety of associations arise through the rhythm of the process. I deepen these associations in drawings, as records of an inner journey. In this way, one image follows on from the other and distinct series take shape. They diverge and intersect with each other like forest trails. 2013/2018   “In her work, Kim Streur combines drawings with almost abstract prints (made with drawing ink) of paper and vegetation. The vegetation prints’ starting point is the physical gesture, and the material then ‘spontaneously directs’ the making of the image. The drawings (made with drawing ink, pencil and pastels) show a more internal world – a densification of memories, associations, longings. These images may unexpectedly pop up during the process, and are then captured, again spontaneously. Kim Streur often associates these images with clearings in a forest."   Arno Kramer | Witteveen Magazine #1, 2013, Diversity in drawing