Hilly van Eerten

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A critic on her praphic art:

The world appears to us in objects. They may be complex or very simple. Together they sing the great song of reality as we experience it. Among the great mass of objects there appear to be primal objects. In the graphic art of Hilly van Eerten these objects re-appear to us; the basic things that have been used by humankind for tens of thousands of years.. ..One such primal material is stone as the basis for building houses. The circle, in either symbolic or practical sense, is another. The gate, invented to carry bulk and thus create a passage through a wall.. ..These basics are often found in historical excavations as well as in our modern time digs; Van Eerten's graphic art is the visual time-bridge between.....

Hilly van Eerten is a born graphic artist because she thinks and dreams graphics. This is after all her one and only medium. Every form and every image in her work comes alive in the typical language of the graphic artist: the grain, the different layers of ink, the transparency and covering layers, all are part of the graphic artist’s palette.

Monotype

Hilly’s work is based mainly her own photos, which themselves are closely related to graphic language. There are archways, paving stones, roof tiles, fishnets, images of the modern city and architecture. She creates an image closely representing our everyday world of objects, but more structured. This is what Hilly is searching for in her work, a new image in structure.
It is the monotype technique that seems to suit her work best during recent years; both black and white as well as in colors.

Where is what

In Hilly van Eerten’s work we note the irrefutable presence of the objects: the street bricks, the roof tiles, the fishnets or a gate. She gives them their characteristic being, as well as the structure in which they occur within the human world. By constant pushing and shoving in her work Hilly van Eerten gives the street brick back its own freedom. The image may, for instance, start to dance with other images; in the digital imaging we are confronted with daily. Or with the images from modern cinema Van Eerten likes to visit frequently. This is how the images in van Eerten’s graphic work enter into new connections and fresh combinations. They play ‘hide and seek’ among the layers of her monotypes and play a game of references. Everything plays out in front of us: where is the front? Where the back? Which is inside and which is outside?

Abstract city

In recent years the modern city has become the main player in her graphic art. Modern buildings from Rotterdam, excavations in Amsterdam city, we can recognize them clearly, but in mixed existence with a mysterious man, or vague reflecting atmospheric lights, or just very solid Dutch bicycles. And always we discover the tales and writings in which the modern city herself tells her daily story. So we meet in her recent graphic art the domain of words and of images, almost inseparably connected. Both worlds are a meaningful language to Hilly van Eerten, so both worlds are worthy enough to be mentioned and represented, so the abstract graphic art becomes a modern visual myth; a tale of the city.