Written by Rick Herrera

Currently the Lloyd Hotel & Cultural Embassy in Amsterdam is displaying Danaë Moons’  Wayward Exit. Moons, who graduated from Rietveld Academy in 2010, Amsterdam-based but originally  from Den Haag, is as she informs us “born in an artwork”; a house by the well known Dutch architect Johannes Duiker (1890–1935). This left traces. A kind of contamination and direction of destiny.

Even though that by now everywhere and time and time again she was confronted with a creative energy, this energy kept brushing past, just barely missing her. Until the monster of art gained up on her, grabbed her and devoured her, hair and skin. She couldn’t avoid it anymore, consented to the relationship and ever since is inseparable with her work.  Her work is her Fire. This Fire, the energy generated from her sculptures is tangible from a distance, and visible for those who have been exposed long enough to this energy.

Her body of work consists of sculptures and drawings. Her characteristic manner of drawing is sculpturesque as her manner of sculpting is drawing-like. The material is used in a rough, unrefined way, in order to create an image of a hidden uncontrolled nature which is still vulnerable. Archeological sites to her are like veiled underground cities of bones, which she finds fascinating to research. Here she sees a frozen perishabillity filled with transformations. According to Danaë Moons archeological sites are desolate places overtaken and occupied by their nature.

In her own words: “We are part of Nature and share her unscrupulous harshness and destructivity. Does the frightful, terrifying Nature touch us with her invisible hands and do we express her threats? Evil housing in every human being is not a faint, not a weakness within Good, it is rather an independent force, an enemy of creation that has taken an animalistic form. Goodness oddly enough is embraced without question.

On the other hand human beings always tend to look for explanations within Evil. Why does every human being have the urge and thoughts to destroy? Human beings scar each other constantly and bring each other undeserved harm, as they turn to become a tool of Natural Forces, which stand indifferent towards the human wellbeing.”.

Danaë Moons ‘Wayward Exit’ is displayed in the Lloyd Hotel until April 3.
VERNISSAGE, Sunday the 18th of March from 12:00 until 15:00.

All photos by Ernst van Deursen