Berend Strik
Embroidering means to add something, corrupting, puncturing and penetrating the image, but also to be the image’s co-creator. You’re adding new layers, infixing things. Two worlds come together by embroidering onto a photograph: the photographic space and reality on the one hand, and the here and now of the embroidery on the other. It’s through this process I try to create deeper meaning.
Berend Strik via hildevancanneyt.blogspot.com, 2016
Berend Strik (1960, the Netherlands) is a remarkably versatile artist. Although he mainly gained renown with his embroideries, he also works with architecture, video, photography, stained glass, and even has a play and an opera to his name. Impressions of his travels, souvenirs, pop culture and images from art history are manipulated with Strik’s needle and thread, bits of plastic, tulle or lace. Strik masks and retouches by emphasizing some parts and shrouding or erasing others, adding a new layer of meaning. His embroidery is a slow, laborious technique that runs contrary to modern-day life, with its apparent urgency and cursory nature.
