Exhibition ‘The Queen has no legs’

Visual artist Jet Nijkamp uses her work to investigate how people and trees live together and how old and new stories bear witness to this. She incorporates this cultural significance into her detailed tree drawings with charcoal and pastel, in which, for example, the tree root or bark almost becomes an entity in itself.

Trees in the city are more than extras in the streetscape. They can be imagined as people with whom we build a life, a bond. They look like us, at least in our heads. Because trees often outgrow people, we see them as witnesses of our lives, of our history.

The tree she drew for the Kleinste Galerietje (Smallest Gallery) is a majestic plane tree. It turned out to have been planted at the birth of Princess Beatrix. She wears a shiny skirt, but at the same time she is a woman of flesh and blood, with scratches on the soul. Although you don’t seem to be allowed to say that about majesties: The queen has no legs.

The scratches on the soul become almost tangible through the video, projected on the “belly” of the tree; carvings in trees from Vondelpark and Munich. Human thoughts on the bark, like tattoos on a skin.

Jet Nijkamp lives and works in Amsterdam. After the preparatory year at the Rietveld Academie, she attended the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, both in Amsterdam.

She also studied law at the VU and Paleography in Vatican City.

Her work has been featured at exhibitions, fairs and venues appropriate to her subjects and in publications such as B O O M, an edition of drawings and poems.

There is a metal door on the facade of Beeldend Gesproken, next to the entrance to the art library. This door gives access to an air shaft that once served to climb on the roof. The Kleinste Galerietje has been located here since February 2015. The space offers a stage for special presentations that lend themselves specifically to the rustic space of only one cubic meter. The Kleinste Galerietje presents artists from the neighbourhood, starting artists as well as well-known names, always striving to make art attractive and accessible to the widest possible audience.