ABOUT
Photo credit: Chris Freeman
Gwendolyn Kassenaar (b.1973 Amsterdam) works across drawing, painting and performance. A London-based graduate of Chelsea College of Art, she investigates the intersection of sound, the body and spirituality.
She made her public art debut with live painted mural ‘Dance to Ecstacy’ in Shoreditch, commissioned by Outside The Zone (2021). For the Bloomsbury Festival 2022 she conceived ‘A Trajectory to Unsuffocation’, an innovative live painting performance with a contemporary dancer addressing self-discovery and empowerment, in a sold-out theatre.
Her work has recently been exhibited in the Yehudi Menuhin Concert Hall (Music the Muse 2022), Toulouse Lautrec Jazz Club (Jazz in Art 2021), Vortex Jazz Club (Freedom, EFG London Jazz Festival 2021) amongst others. She held solo shows ‘ENIGMA | In the Present Moment’ (2022) at Boo’s Gallery, Notting Hill and ‘Transcendence’ (2021) as part of her ExLab artist residency in Shoreditch. Her work features on album covers and in private and corporate collections in the UK, Netherlands, Germany and Spain.
As part of her collaborative and experimental practice Gwendolyn creates live improvised art on stage with musicians and dancers, aided by her synaesthesia. She performed at renowned venues such as Cafe OTO, Hundred Years Gallery, Iklectik, SOAS University and Wardown Museum. She works with highly regarded musicians including Orphy Robinson MBE, legendary feminist Maggie Nicols, Chinese virtuoso percussionist Beibei Wang and Korean flautist Dr. Hyelim Kim.
She co-founded interdisciplinary collective ‘The Noisy Women’. Her work featured in iconic magazine The Wire amongst others, and she was interviewed on Soho Radio and Portobello Radio.
Biography
Artist Statement
Totally unexpected I find myself performing on stage with musicians and dancers creating art live in front of an audience. How did I get here?! As a little girl I learned drawing from my grandfather, and I’ve been drawing ever since, yet growing up in a utilitarian Calvinist environment being an artist was a no-go zone. I studied business and entered the suffocating straight-jacket of corporate life. The desire to create was unstoppable. I sneaked out to attend art classes (leaving my jacket on my chair to hide my absence) . Then… I finally followed my heart and quit to go to Chelsea College of Art! My first project was aptly titled ‘Liberation’.
This sense of personal liberation, self-discovery and empowerment finds its way into my art. I’m on a continuous mission to shed further layers of societal conditioning, hopefully inspiring others too, hence ‘A Trajectory to Unsuffocation’.
My work is a celebration of life, to be fully awake, grab life by the horns! Yet simultaneously it’s a never ending search for meaning in this life, a spiritual path, wondering what lies beyond our sensory experience. I ask myself can we transcend to a higher understanding of reality? How do I relate to my senses, my body, movement, nature, and simultaneously the wider cosmos? I work with a total focus on being in the present moment, which relates directly to my artist practice.
I improvise, often in live performance. In my studio I practise endless hours to be able to be fluid and spontaneous in the moment, akin to a musician’s practice. My approach is experimental. Through playful collaborations new ideas spark, an exciting process shifting what’s possible. I’ve painted on ‘dancing canvasses’, performed in a 60cm narrow shop window during Covid, amongst other free-spirited events. I aim to bring something new to the intersection of visual art, music and dance and contribute to a rich legacy.
In my neurological set-up, vision, sound and bodily movement are all intertwined and ways to reach a higher state of consciousness. Together, they form an integral part of my creative process.
I draw on my synaesthesia. When I hear sound, I see colours, shapes and patterns moving in my mind’s eye, relating to the timbre of the instrument or a rhythm. To me, the sound of a bass clarinet appears as purple or deep red, while birdsong appears as sinuous shapes. Recently, my synaesthesia started to occur with ordinary sounds of daily life, after I had a brain injury which involved a prolonged period of sensory deprivation.
Also, I’m inspired by various movement methods, esoteric 5Rhythms, Gaga (imagine moving through butter), Iyengar yoga (balance and alignment). Practising Latin dance in my youth developed my instinctive feel for rhythm. I listen deeply to live music every week. Furthermore, I studied colour theory in-depth; I’m so meticulous I take 2 entire days to mix 4 precise hues. Finally, spiritual awareness is important to me. Through my daily sitting meditation practice I connect deeper with the ideas of Zen Buddhism and Taoism.
When you encounter my work, you will see my visceral embodied approach in the bold impasto pastel marks and gestural acrylic brush strokes, expressed in an exuberant use of colour. An invitation to experience the intangible poetry of the ephemeral moment.
CV
EDUCATION
Chelsea College of Art, BA (Hons), London, UK
Royal Academy of Art - History of Music & Painting
Royal Drawing School - The Dynamic Body
SOLO EXHIBITIONS & PERFORMANCES
2022 E N I G M A | In the Present Moment, Boo’s Gallery, Notting Hill, London UK
2022 A Trajectory to Unsuffocation, live performance Bloomsbury Festival 2022, London UK
2022 A Trajectory to Unsuffocation, painting exhibition, Bloomsbury Festival 2022, Senate House, University of London, UK
2022 Counterpoint, live art performance with contemporary dance, Noisy People Orchestra, St. Paul’s Church, Cambridge, UK
2021 Freedom exhibition, Vortex Jazz Club, EFG London Jazz Festival 2021
2021 Transcendence, solo exhibition & 3 live performances, ExLab, Shoreditch, London UK, commissioned by Outside The Zone Gallery
2021 Dance to Ecstasy, live painted mural in duo with contemporary dancer, Shoreditch, London UK. Commissioned by OutsideTheZone Gallery
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2022 Music the Muse, Menuhin Concert Hall, Cobham, UK
2021 Jazz in Art, Toulouse-Lautrec Jazz Club, London UK, EFG London Jazz Festival 2021
2018 Nexus, underground pop-up, Holborn, London, UK
SELECTED LIVE ART PERFORMANCES
2023 Flying Free, Noisy Women Present, Cafe Oto, Dalston, London UK
2023 Mopomoso, trio with pianist Meg Morley and cellist Hannah Marshall, Vortex Jazz Club, Dalston, London, UK
2022 Black Top concert, guest artist at with Orphy Robinson MBE, EFG Jazz Festival, Vortex Jazz Club, London UK
2022 Rebel Festival, duo with pianist Meg Morley, The Playground Theatre, Kensington, London UK
2022 Maggie Nicols’ residency concert, Cafe Oto, Dalston, London UK
2022 RELAY 2022, 15 performers in 3 spaces, Tower Theatre, Stoke Newington, London UK
2022 World premiere ‘Wira Buwana’, Lila Cita gamelan, City University, London UK
2022 Improvised Horse Club, all-female ensemble, Iklectik, London UK
2022 Jazz in the Museum, with Paul Jolly, Wardown House Museum and Gallery, Luton, UK
2022 The Noisy Women, inaugural concert, Hundred Years Gallery, Hoxton, London UK
2021 A night of Chinese Percussion, with Beibei Wang, Brunei Gallery Theatre, SOAS University of London UK
2021 Some Loose Assemblies II, poetry recital and live art performance, with dancer Petra Haller & Loz Speyer trio, Hundred Years Gallery, Dalston, London UK
2019 Rêves, Résonance collective, Vortex Jazz Club, Dalston, London UK
SELECTED COMMISSIONS & ALBUM COVERS
2021 Album cover Robin The Fog & Raxil4
2020 Album cover Jazz Apocalypse Unit
2019 Two Commissions Studex Europe, Germany
SELECTED RESIDENCIES & ROLES
2021 Artist Residency ExLab Space, OutsideTheZone Gallery, Shoreditch, London
2022 - now Co-founder Noisy Women Collective, celebrating diversity & inclusivity
2021 - 2022 Resident artist Dance company Company Concentric
2021 - 2022 Resident artist experimental Melifera, Hundred Years Gallery/WappArtMusic Gallery
2019 - 2021 Resident artist Freedom: the Art of Improvisation, Vortex Jazz Club
SELECTED BROADCASTS & SCREENINGS
2022 Mopomoso TV - Matriarchical March, episode featuring live art performance at Vortex Jazz Club
2022 International Womens Day 2022 - Noisy Women debate feminism 60s vs today, live art and music
2022 Bloomsbury Festival channel, live broadcast of live art performance ‘A Trajectory to Unsuffocation’