line dance
MORE THAN JUST AN EXHIBITION, GREY LINES IS A UNIQUE ARTISTIC EXCHANGE OF MUSIC, ART AND DANCE, WHERE A CLASSICALLY-TRAINED ARTIST AND A DANCER COLLABORATE TO BRING DRAWING AND DANCE TOGETHER
Born in Amsterdam into a family of artists, acclaimed Dutch artist Noella Roos betrays a classical and technical foundation seldom seen in the current generation of artists. She is the product of an academic background in European art academies, studying at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague and Academy of Arts Minerva, Groningen (The Netherlands) and Academy of Fine Arts in both Athens and Antwerp.
Inspired by a rich heritage of artists such as Rembrandt, Michelangelo and Willem Dooijenwaard, Noella’s classical training in painting and drawing has been a powerful tool with which to express her main artistic interest – movement of the body. “For years I have been drawing moving or dancing models, a subject I never grow tired of,” declares Noella. “The anatomy of a model in movement is more interesting than a motionless model, because of the constant changes in the shape and movement of muscles, how the light reflects on them, and so on.”
Her fascination for moving figures gradually led to the development of a technique with which she could convincingly capture the quick movements of dancers. As she mastered this technique, her static model studies were slowly replaced by drawings of dancing figures. Simultaneously, through drawing and movement, she follows the rhythm of the dance in her art.
“Having always worked with dancers I’ve developed a great love for dance,” she enthuses. In between numerous exhibitions in Europe and Asia, over the years Noella has studied and drawn ancient traditional dance forms, like Middle-eastern belly dancing and Indian Hindu-influenced dances. In Sri Lanka, she depicted indigenous Kandy and Low Country dances in painted murals inside a Buddhist temple.
life lines
Now based in Bali, Noella has for the last two years been working with Balinese dancers: traditional Balinese dance inspires her as it is full of architectonic lines and is generally strong and expressive. In her lovely garden studio in Sanur, (where Noella also gives private tutoring in oil-painting and its techniques through workshops and classes), art models have included traditional Balinese dancer, Ida Ayu Indah Tejapratami, and some modern dancers from Europe.
Noella prefers to make drawings where she depicts the emotional expressions of the dance, not necessarily the character, pose and theatrical energy. Subjects are drawn as dancing lines, rather than as traditional costumed figures, which would detract from the emotions and expression of the dance itself. “I continue drawing the dancing models until I can fully fathom their movements; hence I prefer to work for long periods at a time with one model. To best capture the dancers in motion, dancers are given classical and modern music to perform to in the studio. Only when that one moment of sublime connection between dancer, artist and music is captured – only then a great work of art can be achieved.”
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