Dutch artist Ine Van Son is based in the countryside in the south of The Netherlands. She creates installations, mainly outdoors, the concept of which comes from “a piece of material, an area, a landscape, an atmosphere or memory.” Her simple techniques highlight the beauty of the material which once in situ manages to both blend in and stand out with the environment.

Where are you based and where do you work ?

I am based in the Netherlands. I have my own studio at home, in a rural area in the south (Noord Brabant). Here I work and develop my projects. As I often create in-situ installations, I mainly use my studio space to develop the concepts and prepare the materials for the in-situ work. 

So when people ask me if they can come and see my work at my studio, I have to disappoint them. There is little to be seen here, just materials. When I present my concepts to a curator or exhibition space, I try to visualise my concepts with sketches or collage. The “real” work is built in-situ where it exists for a certain time. 

What is your background in textiles?

I trained to be a teacher but I guess the love for materials was given to me by my mum and dad. When I remember being a child, I see myself sitting next to my mum and imitating her needle work. She used to knit and sew a lot of clothes for my sister and me and I was fascinated by her hand movements as well as by her sewing machine. My dad used to cut all the wood for our stove and I loved to help him although he did not like me to be around the tools for safety reasons. So he let me do small works with very blunt tools. This is where my love for materials comes from. And maybe also my tendency to see the versatility of materials and tools. 

What is it that appeals to you about textiles?

I grew up seeing the value of textiles. I learned very young the techniques to work the material into useable objects. It is much later that I started to “look with an artists’ eye” and started to discover how I can use the material to create autonomous art. I think it must be the accessibility of the material which attracts me: it’s palpability, the fact that every one of us has some kind of relation with the material: cloths, curtains etcetera. The feeling of it gives many associations of earlier experiences or childhood. 

How do you describe your work and what techniques do you use?

It took me a few years to discover what type of art I really feel comfortable with. I remember a teacher (Marion Herbst) during my studies who told me that every artist has his/her own size, that you have to discover what kind of size matches with you. My ‘personal size’ turns out to be the size of my body or bigger. It fascinates me to create work where I can go inside and be surrounded by. 

Techniques I do not find extremely interesting. I am much more interested by simple methods to create material which is strong enough and also still tangible with the touch of textile, to create my work. And I find it fascinating to go back to the source of the material as well as to the source of  the techniques. For example; working wool from the sheep by seeing the animal being sheered, washing, carding and spinning it with my spindle or wheel. Or growing my own flax and working it into usable fibers. 

The techniques I use to work the material are generally very simple, as I am looking for the visual effect, not for a highly sophisticated technique. The material is not the goal, but a way to reach the goal: the image/installation. 

My work is highly associative. I let myself be guided by some kind of ‘inner voice’, I do not draw or sketch before creating. Of course, once working in situ I have a plan and I know how to use techniques to build the work. But the concept is purely associative. 

Why are most of your installations outdoors?

Mostly working outdoors is not completely by choice. I like working inside as well as outside. Building an in-situ work at an inside location is different, but as interesting as working outside. Until now I have mostly been invited to exhibit at outdoor exhibitions. Although the installation ‘Spinnings’ from 2017 is a nice exception. 

Working outside requires a different way of handling the material. It has to be resistant to the weather, and often it is not supervised. But an inside area often demands other ways of attaching and securing the material. And as the environment, inside as well as outside, always has a decisive influence on the work (the space and the installation highly work together and influence each other), it is always an extremely interesting adventure to build the work. The result is always different than I think it will be, for the space plays a role as big as my own role in the final outcome.

How do you work?

I do make ‘mind-sketches’… I have an idea, try to visualise it in my head. Often these ideas are born from a piece of material. But it also can start from an area, a piece of land. Or an atmosphere, a memory. It is as if the work builds itself in my head. Then I start making small pieces of installations in my workshop. Or outside in my garden. With the photographs I take there, I make collages that give an impression of how a large installation would look. 

When I make an offer for a certain exhibition space, I try to find out what the area asks. What is the atmosphere there, the history or the actual appearance? That is the starting point for my collages. Once selected by the curators I build it in situ. It is only then that the final appearance takes form.

Roughly how long does one installation take to create? 

That is very hard to say. Preparing the materials starts long before it is clear where they will be used. Sometimes it takes my just a few weeks, but it also happens that the materials have been growing for years before they find their place in a certain work. 

The final creating of the installation in situ depends on the size. It varies between two days and two weeks or more. And also on how long it has to stay in place: a work that will stay for six months has other needs than for only one weekend. 

How long do you leave them in nature, and what happens to them afterwards?

It depends on the exhibition organiser and how long a work can stay. Sometimes it stays for only a week or weekend, sometimes it can live on for six months or more. Of course I prefer to be able to leave the work for a longer time. But it is not usually up to me. 

After the exhibition I take the work down. I try to leave the place without traces. The materials, or what is left of them, I take back to my studio. Sometimes they are really worn-out but sometimes I can use them again in another work. 

What are you most proud of in your career so far? 

That is a very difficult question. Maybe the fact that I come from a background where being an artist was not seen as a profession. Not at all. So I had to find out by myself about my own ‘artistic language’, there were no artists in my family. It was only at the age of 30 or so that I felt self-assured enough to call myself ‘artist’. But my confidence has grown, I realise that my work is standing proud in the list of art-works. As is my name in the list of artists. I am proud of that! 

But I do have more in my capacity than I have been able to show until now. So I am still looking for the opportunity to build a work much bigger than I did until now. Which will be able to stay much longer in situ than it has been until now. To be able to really reach into the deepest depth of my ability. I know that I am capable of much more than I have shown until now. 

Do you have any advice for aspiring artists that use textiles as a medium? 

Try to break away from the traditional crafts. I know that they are great and very pleasant to work with but textiles is so much more. Try to use it in another way that maybe at the start seems unworkable. What will come out then might be something that is still close to traditional crafts and that it great. But we, being artists, can do more with the material and that is what makes us into artists. The line between arts and crafts is subtle and delicate. One is not better than the other. They touch, but they are not the same. They may intensify each other. Using textiles in a not-traditional way can be very refreshing. 

Take a look at the work of Magdalena Abakanowicz. It is a wonderful example of what kind of art can be created with textile. 

Is there anything else you would like to add? 

When I was much younger, the French sculpter Daniël Dufois once told me to develop my own ‘handwriting’. At that moment I did not really know how to do that, but in the years that followed I started understanding his advice; when somebody sees your work he/she has to know it is yours without seeing the nameplate. So make sure to go your own way and follow what comes out of your hands. Try not to imitate other artists. Let yourself be inspired by them, but do not want to do like them. Follow your own hands and your own individual handwriting (style) will grow. 

https://inevanson.exto.org