ARTIST STATEMENT
Lique Schoot (Arnhem, 1969) is a multidisciplinary artist. She works in the tradition of conceptual art. Her self-portraits are visual autobiographical statements that reflect current times.
Since graduating in 1997, she has concentrated on the self-portrait as a vehicle for exploring the nature of existence. She has taken a picture of herself every day with an analog compact camera at arm’s length since October of 2003. This continuous stream of self-portraits, LS diaries, records her existence in one frame every day. Each month, the film roll is developed in the lab. The prints are stored on a CD, subtly edited on the computer, and titled with the date they are made (year, month and day).
This photographic diary is a central source for LS data, her entire, growing oeuvre, encompassing paintings, photography, objects, poems, site-specific art, and installations. In all of her work, she explores the dual nature of identity as simultaneously the perpetual reinvention of the self and an equally willful projection of the other. Common emotions and great themes emerge from the quiet simplicity and persistence of my imagery.
In my work, feminism means being visible as a woman by showing moments of my daily life in a pure and honost way, just the person who I am, not as object, but as subject.
The photo installation 20 Days with Hair Towels (2008-2019) shows self-portraits from the LS diaries in which I have just emerged from the shower with a towel ‘headdress’ (typical for women) wrapped around my head, my skin slightly swollen and irregular from the warm water. My eyes openly and directly engage the viewer.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Lique Schoot (NL, 1969) was born in Arnhem-NL, the city where she currently lives and works. She received her Bachelor Degree from ArtEZ (Academy of Visual Arts, NL) in 1997.
Lique is a multidisciplinary artist. She works in the tradition of conceptual art. Since her graduation, she has used the self-portrait as a vehicle for exploring the nature of existence. Her work shows identity, daily life, general emotions, and deals with the major themes of life.
After her graduation in painting, photography and objects, her work was nominated and awarded several times, in- and outside the Netherlands. Since then Lique’s work has been featured in exhibitions in museums including the Valkhof Museum, the Bommel van Dam Museum, the Gorcums Museum and CODA Museum in the Netherlands; Koehnline Museum of Art and Phoenix Art Museum in the USA; FeliXart Museum, Be-Part, Museum SONS in Belgium and Museum Kurhaus Kleve in Germany.
Her work has also been exhibited in galleries and art fairs around the world including Chicago, New York, Düsseldorf, Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague.
Works are included in museum collections in- and outside the Netherlands.
Recently she received a Project Grant from the Mondriaan Fund.
© Lique Schoot