cor·re·la·tion – /ˌkôrəˈlāSH(ə)n/

• a mutual relationship or connection between two or more things.

• the process of establishing a relationship or connection between two or more measures.

• interdependence of variable quantities. – Oxford Languages

The carbon-monoxide alarm decided to go off in the middle of the night. Try to figure out what the pattern of shrill beeps means, when you’re cold, rattled, and the dog is howling downstairs. Instructions are on the back of the gadget, in miniature font size, and so with much squinting we learned that a sequence of five beeps in a row signaled that the gizmo had reached the end of its life span. Short altercation ensued of who of us two was privileged to fling it into the garbage. Back in bed at 1:20 a.m., sleep, of course, remained illusory. Luckily, I had additional patterns to sort out, my head still filled with the impressions of the previous day.

“Art is beautiful. Requires a lot of work, though.” Quote by Karl Valentine, found in the artist’s studio.

I had been invited to a studio visit and guided tour through an exhibition at The Arts Center in Corvallis by the artist Hanne Niederhausen. As luck would have it, one of my readers had pointed out the two-person show, A Journey: Hanne Niederhausen & Judith Wyss, and established contact with the artist, otherwise I would have missed it. Which would have been truly unfortunate.

Niederhausen was born in Germany shortly after World War II, we are of the same generation. We both arrived in the U.S. around age 30, and so we share a set of experiences that comes with uprooting as adults, both from the country of origin and the nomadic life of the academic circuit. After years of transitions, she and her husband settled in Boca Raton, FL before they moved to Oregon five years ago after retirement, to be closer to their children.

Glimpses of the current studio.

I am drawing out the biographic parallels because they undoubtedly create some affinity, the familiarity of the mother tongue, the echos of the lived experience of being considered an American when visiting back home, a German when defined here. Neither fish nor flesh, as they say in the old country. More importantly, though, the parallels guided – whether appropriate or not – my reaction to and assessment of the art before me, through the lens of continual reinvention that comes with an immigrant’s path.

Don’t let the occasional impish smile of this slender woman deceive you. Underneath lies a powerhouse creative mind. The artist received her M.A. at the Pädagogische Hochschule Karlsruhe in Germany, and a B.F.A. from Florida Atlantic University. During her early career she worked and taught as a fiber artist, but expanded across the years into work with multiple media, book arts, edging, painting and photography among them. Proof of the quality of the work and the fact that the world still occasionally embraces renaissance (wo)men, can be found in the list of her national and international exhibitions, and presence in international art collections.

Sketches on studio wall

As I see it, two overarching principles define the content across her use of diverse artistic processes. One principle is Niederhausen’s sharp observation of her environment and the desire to document the impact of that surround. I believe careful exploration of one’s world is a necessary, though not sufficient condition to adapt as an immigrant or continual traveler. You need to orient yourself in new places, not just out of curiosity or appreciation of novelty, but as a tool for (psychological) survival as much as anything else. With the intense observation comes an appreciation of detail that might well be lost to those who have the privilege of being rooted in a place for good. Documentation helps to keep score of where you are, and place yourself within a context, a counterweight to constant change.

On Left: Uprooted (1995) Edging, Chine Collé / On Right: Sanssoucie (1995) Edging, Chine Collé

The early edgings depict a sense of place, but also hint at the artist’s position within it, a marker for memory, when the next change arrives. The castle on the right, for example, was home in Austria during graduate school, Sanssoucie the French for worry free, the Sorry board game marks a reminder of hours of play with the young children. (The German name for the game by the way is Folks, don’t get angry! Why use one word when you can use many? Today’s photographs are a mix of work from both, studio and exhibition. I particularly liked how conditions of the latter “shone a light” on some of the subjects, like the lamp in the upper left corner of Uprooted, reflections that were not just the typical nuisance, for once.)

Later work employs local materials that have the memory of place imprinted within, to address particulars of the environment. One such example is the use of discarded hurricane shutters as the metallic substrate for engraving with an electric dremel, drawing with ink and painting with shellac. The plates themselves have permanent scratches and scars from frequent exposure during Florida’s hurricane season, occasional labels on the back for placement (e.g. lower left patio window) and invite one’s imagination to interpret the mark making in ways related to anxious morning hours expecting the environmental damage.

In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning (2011) Engraved Metal, Ink, Shellac (details below)

From the same environment under duress:

Caution (2007) Starbook

Still other work is focused on the act of letting go, oscillating between the accumulation of inherited objects, the preservation of memory and the freedom of traveling light.

Letting Go (2019) Mixed Media

(The silver tongues were used to lift sugar cubes into tea or coffee cups in every Bougie household…)

The second connecting principle is a mastery of establishing correlations which emerges throughout the artist’s body of work. What she assembles and how she assembles is driven by an eye for connections, parallels, and correspondences. It can be most directly found in used text, where associations and equivalences rule. But it is always integrated in the visual elements as well, if you look for concurrences. Have I floated enough vocabulary to express my sense of interrelationships when looking at this work? It’s pretty striking. It also is prime territory for inviting speculations. Here’s an example.

The flag book Isaac and Simone or The Relativity of the Horizon (2014) consists of pages densely covered with photographs of scribblings or calligraphy, some squares centered in the pages, and the – warranted – question at the outset “Am I really absorbing any of this.” There are lots of numbers, dates and male and female names, maybe a simple referral to favorite kids’ names in any given year? Lovers writing their names on tree branches? Then again, putting Isaac and relativity in one sentence does trigger an association with Newton and his Inverse Square Law. So what’s Simone got to do with it? Perhaps de Beauvoir’s third volume in her biography, The Force of Circumstance, that argues for very different forces affecting us just as stringently as physics, with loss forever on the horizon? I had no clue. That makes it so exciting. Our imagination might or might not be correlated with the artist’s intent, but the search for a tie-in links us nonetheless, particularly if you have an overly-active imagination like mine… (Hint: I learned it was kids or visitors scratching their names on bamboo trunks. Sometimes a name is just a name! Must remember…)

Isaac and Simone or The Relativity of the Horizon (2014) Flagbook

Niederhausen got interested in books at a time when she explored Florida Atlantic University’s collection of special books at the Jaffe Center. She explored assemblages with writing, drawing, prints and photographs, forever changing the parameters that constituted a finished work. I found work mounted in her studio particularly poignant. Here is one that nods to the plight of those incarcerated, counting the days.

another one that gives a tip of the hat to the impact of Duchamp’s 1951 bicycle wheel, and another book that simply caught my eye because of its beauty,

and last but not least one that speaks to all of us struggling with serious illness. Or maybe to shared fears. Who knows.

One of my favorite books at the exhibition (and I say that as someone who loathes cooking and loves eating!) is a two-sided flutter book, In Praise of the Art of Cooking. As the artist explains, the concept was born out of the realization how much art making and cooking had in common, ideas leading to concoction. Photographed images of discarded vegetable matter enhance the drawn art.

Photographs of the tools of the visual artist are juxtaposed with those of the cook, again associating one or more variables. A clever addition of quotes by famous artists, changed by a word or two to apply them to culinary rather than visual arts, stressing how easily they are related, added a bit(e) of fun as well as a dollop of art history.

Miró’s original words were: “I try to mix colors like words that shape poems, like notes that shape music.” We might as well add another Joan Miró quote that applies to Niederhausen’s output: “The works must be conceived with fire in the soul but executed with clinical coolness.”

Food is a recurrent subject matter. From whimsical assemblages that put constructed meals on place settings reminiscent of Judy Chicago,

Mellow Meal (2011) Assemblage on Table

to picnic baskets that contain bamboo plates covered with assemblages depicting the whims, seductions and dangers of the food industry, Niederhauser again documents the peculiarities as well as quotidian matters of her environment.

Last Picnic Mixed Media and Photography on Bamboo Plates with Hatbox.

***

Generous souls at The Arts Center allowed for entry before visiting hours, so I avoided sharing a public space with many people, for which I am truly grateful. The gallery is located in an old church, within a pleasant setting of green spaces, with ample parking. The space is big enough for both artists’ work to be hung without interfering with each other. I unfortunately could not review Judith Wyss’ installations and glass work as well, since I had come to focus on an artist who has re-invented herself multiple times and with whom I had occasion to have serious conversations. I believe there will be another review of the full exhibit in Oregon Arts Watch in days to come.

What struck me about Niederhausen’s later work – and I wonder how much that is age related – is how she has freed herself from the need to prove something, be it impressive print making skill and etching technique, or important or clever ideas.

I was taken by a series of paintings that correlated simple mathematical concepts, a hint of geometry or Fibbernacci numbers here or there, with a riot of color and bursts of random patterning, really the one exhibit in the hall that I associated with unfettered joy.

Q.E.D. Quod Erat Demonstrandum (2013) Mixed Media. Detail below.

An even more recent series, Dreams and Diversions, is the most fluid of the lot. It felt more wistful than joyous, but true to self and the principles of observation and correlation. The patterns originated in discovering beansprouts on the kitchen counter that had dried up over night (observation/documentation.) They take on a life of their own, however, floating through various constellations, linked to amorphous landscapes, associated with jewel-like shapes that might have naturally blossomed in some imaginary world, correlating with an increasing sense of being untethered. They seemed like visions of entering a different dimension – perceived by this viewer as an intuition of aging and beyond, one that was more empowering than threatening.

Dreams and Diversion Series (2016) Water Media, Graphite on Yupo Paper – Details below

What happens to you when you age, as an artist? When physical factors limit what you can create or what process you can use for creating? What cognitive factors play a role, perceptions of futility, perhaps, or of the need to use shrinking time wisely? Do you frantically produce or do you withdraw? Do you fear that your repertoire of ideas might finally be exhausted, haunted by worry that you only repeat yourself? How do you keep yourself convinced that you have something to say and the means to say it in novel ways? Will the cessation of art making leave a huge hole, or will it provide some freedom in your fatigued existence? Questions I ask myself and plan on asking other artists in their 70 and 80s, Niederhausen included. I hope that the answer reflects an urge to create, in perhaps reduced fashion, but create nonetheless. Lots of time to rest later. Yes, it involves a lot of work, but art is beautiful!

Vacancy # 1 (1992) Edging

A Journey: 

Hanne Niederhausen & Judith Wyss

May 19-June 25, 2022 –

Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 12 – 5 pm

The Arts Center – 700 SW Madison Ave, Corvallis, OR 97333