Return on Invest: Femmy Otten

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Central to the work of Femmy Otten (1981) are murals/reliefs, drawings and spatial installation that are related to the mythical. Hans den Hartog Jager recently wrote about her work in the NRC newspaper that in her work the classical frescos come to life, that the references to the Greeks or to the Renaissance remind us of the elusiveness of the past.

In this process the classics are blended effortlessly with the personal. You can feel the past but know no longer whether it is the artist's past or that of a Greek heroin. About this the artist states: 'I combine the legends of my memory with the profoundness of the history with which we are still familiar.'

Den Hartog Jager ends his review with the words: 'Both in art history as in her own past, she looks for pure, ‘real' images, while at the same time she realises that all true pureness has long since disappeared, has stayed behind in the fog of time. That is the beauty of Otten's work: she knows how to bring this past to life after all.'

For Return on Invest, Otten made a new relief containing images that feel familiar but are hard to place: New myth for new family.

www.femmyotten.nl

Femmy Otten, New myth for new family, 2011-2012
photo: © Rob Kollaard, courtesy Stroom Den Haag

Invite (design Thonik, Amsterdam)