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The
most frequently heard comments from people who are faced with any
of Heiko and Selina Niedermeyer’s art collections are, “All
the pieces look so different. Are they painted by the same artists?”
and “Are you sure that they both paint on the same canvas?
The paintings look like only one artist has worked on them.”
That is one singular factor that stands out in the work of this
husband and wife team. It is the seamless fusion of masterful skills
and creative ideas from two very distinct individuals, resulting
in a vast spectrum of abstract and concrete formal expression that
is rare.
As Vicki Ang, gallery director from the prestigious Wetterling Teo
Gallery in Singapore enthused, “The works are brilliant.”
“What amazes and delights us is the harmony that results from
the deep and open surrender to the creative ideas and styles that
we individually bring to the work as we paint alongside each other.
The trust and admiration we feel for each other allows us to be
inspired by the other.”
Their paintings reflect a harmonious creative merging and collaboration
of a couple who come from different backgrounds, culture, nationality
as well as gender. Solution, not compromise, in coming to a result
is expressed as they both create fully and freely on each piece
without limiting the other. As a result, their presence is felt
and exists everywhere on their visuals.
"The inner pictures in our shared memories from our exciting
travel adventures as well as the daily and nightly events in our
life together are often seeds for a new painting. We are inspired
by Real Life itself, all of its elements and facets...from cities
to mountains, forests and the ocean as well as the invisible and
the imaginary worlds. The expression and Union of the Male and Female
Principles in Life is a frequent inspiration for us in many of our
pieces. Pages from a book, read aloud in bed after a night of painting,
at 5.30am, gripped us with so much passion and emotion that we had
to leap out of bed to compose the vivid visuals evoked onto a new
canvas."
Scientific analogies can be aptly drawn to describe the synergy
between this artistic duo.
Like the two strands of a DNA, in complementary pairing, they each
bond readily to the other so that the identity of each strand complements
the strength of the other in it’s own individuation and melts
as a double helix, synthesizing a new form from the template of
One That Are Two That Are One.
This explosive partnership of the couple on canvas can be likened
to a nuclear fusion.
A nuclear fusion happens when 2 hydrogen atoms combine to form a
larger helium atom.
In the process, an enormous amount of heat energy is given off.
A typical example of nuclear fusion is the sun.
This tremendous excess of creative energy, which is always released
through Heiko and Selina’s fusion, extends the sum of both
which forms a powerful new element that flows into each of their
paintings.
Their magnificent paintings emanate an essence and a presence which
is both visible as well as tangible.
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Selina
Niedermeyer
Born
1964, Singapore
Education
1987 B.A.,
English Literature & Sociology, National University
of Singapore, Singapore
Group
Exhibitions
1998 "Mixed
Media", Kinara Kinari Gallery, Jakarta, Indonesia
1998
"Intersection", Galerie Societe Generale, Alliance Francaise,
Singapore
1999
"Woman, A Celebration", Notices The Gallery, Four Seasons
Hotel, Singapore
2004
"Ripples", Wetterling Teo Gallery, Singapore
2004 "New
Finds 2004", Art Galleries Association, MICA Building
ARTrium, Singapore
Solo
Exhibition
2003 "One
That Are two That Are One", Seven@Stevens Gallery,
Singapore |
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Selina
Niedermeyer comes from a leading professional make-up artist and
set design background in the fashion and film industries
in South East Asia. She later established a
career as an Interior Designer. As an Interior Designer, her innate
artistic creativity was given
free reign when she personally designed and
created unique wall murals, lamps and furniture
for her clients in their homes. These were featured
in local interior design magazines as were the rest
of her commissioned home interior designs.
Her work was described by one leading home
interior magazine as "experimental art forms"
which "throw tradition to the winds" and her ideas, "unconventional".
The
first art exhibition Selina Niedermeyer participated in happened
only because she was excited by the prospect of nesting up with
4 international women artist friends on a rainforest covered hill
overlooking Lake Meninjau in Sumatra, Indonesia. It was too late
to pull out by the time she fully realized that she had also said
yes to producing art pieces while she was there and exhibiting them
in Jakarta a month later.
Returning
from the success of that joyful artistic adventure, it seemed natural
for her to say yes
to the next exhibition and to continue with the
journey of discovering and remembering what
she felt is a natural and intrinsic creative facet
of her being.
In
her art, she is inspired by elements that contribute to the process
of building like sand, wall plaster and cement which are juxtaposed
with the fragility and delicacy of make-up powders and colors mixed
into acrylic and oil paints for texture and effect. She chooses
to create not only on canvas but also on materials like Perspex,
wood and plaster.
"My
personal pieces reflect the subjects closest to my
heart - the connection of the Self with the Source, of the Presence
of God and the Oneness in All That Is as well as the intense energies
of Love and Passion in the Feminine.
Painting and merging with my husband, Heiko, on canvas has expanded
my range as well as his and has inspired me to leap beyond my artistic
boundaries. It has delighted and amazed me that I have grown in
my artistic _expression in a more intense and rapid development
than if I had done it solo. It is a great satisfaction and fulfillment
that we share the same views on Life and walk the same Journey."
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Heiko
Niedermeyer
Born
1969 Bielefeld, Germany
1986-1989
Training and study as professional sculptor in Lemgo, Germany.
Made
a series of practical studies with German sculptor Peter Klassen
(former student of Henry
Moore in this period.
1990 Sculpting and painting at Claremont School of Art , Perth,
Australia
View some of Heiko Niedermeyer's sculptures
>>>
Group Exhibitions
2004 "Ripples", Wetterling Teo Gallery, Singapore
2004 "New Finds 2004", Art Galleries Association, MICA Building
ARTrium, Singapore
Solo
Exhibition
2003
"One That Are two That Are One", Seven@Stevens Gallery,
Singapore |
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Heiko Niedermeyer's love of the arts
and music began at an early age . After school he took the rare
opportunity to study sculpting in Lemgo, Germany. Heiko demonstrated
such a skill and talent in his work that his teacher asked to buy
some his work from him.
It
was in those creatively formative years that Heiko struck up a friendship
with German sculptor, Peter Klassen (former student of
Henry
Moore) and his wife, Liselotte, who owned Knapp
Gallery in Plettenberg, Germany. He stayed with them for a series
of practical studies with Peter which inspired and encouraged him
even more to continue with his art. It was here too that he found
recognition of his potential as an artist and sculptor.
His
personal experiences and search for the essence of life and the
essence of art reveals itself for him as one and the same. "An
artist doesn't work his art, he lives it. Produced pieces of painting,
sculpture or music are just some possible expressions of this essence."
Heiko's infectious exuberance and love for life shines clearly through
in all that he chooses to do. And with lighthearted seriousness,
he has chosen "to paint music and to play paintings."
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