EINDHOVEN.- For her project Yellow Interior in 11.620 Parts , Eindhoven based artist Marie Lexmond is constructing a unique domestic setting within the open air space of Het Oog (The Eye). The interior, consisting of tables, chairs, a kitchen, carpet and wall paper, is covered in yellow J-cloths, 11.620 of them to be precise. At first glance, the representation of a domestic setting appears to reference the tradition of Dutch interior paintings. However, Lexmond’s choice to cover her interior with the most simple of domestic cleaning cloths gives Yellow Interior a claustrophobic undercurrent. The scale and labour required to realise Yellow Interior is both obsessive and absurd, addressing the politics and psychology of the domestic space.

Marie Lexmond: "I walked around for years with this cloth; at first just because of the bright yellow colour. Later I developed an increasing fascination around issues such as Cleaning vs. Beauty and Cleansing vs. Purity. This layer in the work originates from my work as a female caregiver and psychosyntheticus, in which I deal with people and (their) behaviour. I saw many women with traumas around (sexual) violence. The fear and anger arising from this sometimes result in miraculous survival strategies. In this project I have designed two of them: fear of contamination and excessive compulsion to embody perfection. If you have to live with this, it means unbearable suffering; also for the people around you. But for an artist it is actually an amazing process to watch. The qualities of this cloth give a frightening and maddening tendency to perfection and control.”

During the course of the exhibition a series of sessions with a group of women and a pyschosynthesist will take place in the museum, using Yellow Interior as the context to discuss issues arising from domestic violence.

Change in time
Both the appearance and the atmosphere in Het Oog will change during the course of the exhibition. Visitors’ footsteps will leave traces, so will the weather as the installation is exposed to sun, wind and rain. Yellow Interior will thus show the traces of the past, showing how time not only marks us physically, but also psychologically.

Marie Lexmond
Marie Lexmond (1957) is an artist based in Eindhoven. She has worked for many years in the fields of mental health and education. In 2002 she graduated as an from the Fontys art academy in Tilburg in ‘conceptual art and textiles’. She now combines her work as an artist and a caregiver, seeing working in the arts and dealing with people as a synthesis.

Curator
Nick Aiken