Painters 2015

Gineke Zikken

Gineke Zikken spent the first two days of the festival studying the wooden door to her bedroom at the Baitil Aman Hotel. Carefully examining the view in front of her, she only touched her canvas after first configuring the entire painting in her mind. Zikken is from that fascinating breed of artists with a mathematical mind. Her approach is meticulous and undeviating.

Using “strong and simple forms, and very particular colours”, she is drawn to vistas with a geometric feel and a gentle, harmonized palette. Paying little attention to the people and animals on location, Zikken is preoccupied with the slopes of a stairwell, the outlines of a window and the intersection of wall and roof lines. She is consumed by infrastructure; interesting buildings, alleyways, kiosks and street corners. Her addiction to line and contour presents a unique perspective on the Lamu experience, bringing something unusual to the table.

For the last 25 years, Zikken has lived and worked in Amsterdam. She graduated from the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen and later joined De Wackers Academie, a private institute in Amsterdam focused on figure drawing, painting and sculpture. Tired of painting stilllifes and human models, Zikken has found her calling painting plein-air panoramas. She produced a large series of oil paintings of the Amsterdam Harbour, some of which are featured at the Amsterdam Museum and the Historical Museum of the Hague. She participates in several art festivals in Holland and in 2007, she took home the Rembrandt Painting Award at the annual Noordwijk Festival.