On this episode of Interview Roulette, we connected Emmie Liebregts and Lou-Lou van Staaveren.
What’s your favorite flower?
Although I love to see flowers outside I’m super allergic so I do have a love-hate relationship with them. If I have to choose a favorite it would be a Passiflora, they used to grow in the garden at my parents’ house. It really is a super strange flower to see.
How do you get by? How do you make money?
For the past year I have kindly been supported by The Mondriaan Fund and more and more these days I also have income as an artist through exhibitions and commissions. And to give you a honest answer I also like having some stability, so I have a side job as an optician which, next to some money, also gives me some structure to the week.
What’s the best part of your artistic process?
The moment I’m working on something and get involved so deeply that I continue the making process while sleeping. Sometimes I also start solving the difficulties I run into while making in my dreams and usually it then turns out to actually work in real life. I always find that really interesting.
This is a sketch I made at night while I was working on an installation that eventually in real life looks almost the same as I dreamt of back then.
Do you ever have an artist block and how do you get out of it?
Ha! I planned on asking this question too. I do get stuck, yes. Everybody does, I think? Up until now I haven’t found a concrete way to get unstuck, I guess I just try to shift my focus and to go ahead and take a picture or do something else. Gardening is a great way to get unstuck.
What is a material you would love to work with but haven’t yet?
Bit of a boring answer, but I’ve been wanting to work with wood to make my own frames. I’m planning to make some for UNFAIR23– we’ll see how it goes!
What experience or art work you might have seen once has inspired you the most to do or make the things you do today?
Wow, uhm… I can’t really think of a single experience or work that has been profoundly influential like that. Over the past years I’ve visited several (artist’s) gardens and these visits have been very insightful and inspiring: Derek Jarman’s garden at Prospect Cottage in Dungeness (UK); Monet’s garden in Giverny (FR); the Marqueyssac gardens (FR); the gardens of Mien Ruys in Dedemsvaart (NL); Elspeth Diederix’ Miracle Gardens (NL); amongst others. I can also obsess over gardens in paintings such as The Swing by Fragonard (1767) and recently I’ve been OBSESSED with the garden paintings by Jacobus van Looy, especially De Tuin (1892).
Jacobus van Looy De tuin (1892)
Jean-Honoré Fragonard The Swing (1767)
These interviews are part of an ongoing series of short interviews between Unfair artists, originally published through our mailings. Check the overview to read the other interviews or subscribe to our mailing list through the button below: