Now:
SARAY
Christie van der Haak
installation with paintings, wallpaper
ceramics, glass, wall tapestries, furniture
25 February – 31 March 2024
Finissage Sunday 31 March 13:00 – 17:00 hours
Christie van der Haak is present
Christie van der Haak, Saray, wallpaper with Dire Adieu and Alte Pinakothek
Christie van der Haak, La Cause de Notre Joie, 1998, oilpaint on linen, 70 x 50 cm
Christie van der Haak, no title, 2000, glaze on ceramic, 60 cm
Christie van der Haak, Osmose, 2002, oilpaint on linen, 180 x 110 cm
Christie van der Haak, Saray, wallpaper with Osmose
Christie van der Haak, no title, 2024, glass, pigment, 30 x 19 x 19 cm
Christie van der Haak, Kairos, 2019, wool, jacquard woven, 288 x 213 cm
Christie van der Haak, Saray, wallpaper with History, Philip II, and William of Orange
Christie van der Haak, History, William of Orange, 1991, oilpaint on linen, 125 x 99 cm
In recent years, Christie van der Haak (1950) made a series of installations in which her patterns on furniture, vases, ceramics, objects and wall carpets defined the exhibition space, as in a Gesamtkunstwerk or an oriental palace (Saray is Turkish for palace).
in her paintings ornament played an important role from the beginning, such as her Madonna portraits of the late 1980s, which she partly covered with patterns. In doing so, she combined in a sense the Western figurative tradition with the Islamic in which ornament is a dominant feature. From 2003 onwards she gradually let go of painting and turned to designing patterns. At first, still derived from fragments from her paintings but subsequently drawn on A5 paper that is mirrored and doubled in the computer making the pattern symmetrical.
Christie van der Haak applies them in autonomous artworks such as tapestries and rugs but also in furniture fabrics, wall coverings and wallpaper. Her patterns adorn, among others, the sofas of the Amrath Hotel in the former Scheepvaarthuis in Amsterdam, the corridors of the Dutch embassies in Havana and Ankara, the entrance hall of the ING Leeuwarden office and Piet Hein Eek’s benches
Highlight in 2016 was the Wolfsonian Museum in Miami whose façade and entrance hall were almost entirely covered with her ornamental patterns. Following the exhibition A Sea of Glass (2013) at the National Glass Museum Leerdam, Christie van der Haak began designing glass vases which she produces with master glassblower Gert Bullée.
For the exhibition at the gallery, she designed new patterns that will cover most of the gallery walls. On the wallpaper paintings from the from the Osmosis and Dire Adieu series, Madonnas and historical portraits will be displayed, similar to her exhibition at the Den Haag Gemeentemuseum in 2015 on the occasion of Christie van der Haak winning the Ouborg Prize.
The patterns of the wallpaper change from a small to a large scale, which causes a suggestion of movement. This illusion is enhanced by the fact that the paintings also contain ornaments, which makes them slowly break away from the wallpaper. They are complemented by wall tapestries produced by Flanders Tapestries and the Textielmuseum Tilburg, upholstered furniture, ceramic plates and glass vases. The exhibition thus displays the full range of Christie van der Haak’s work.