ABOUT
Although there has been some shapeshifting over the years, the focus lately has been increasingly on the series "organics".
All organic forms can be the starting point: be it floral forms, fungi, coral, molds,or plankton. The growth process, the forms created by attraction and repulsion and the search for the path of least resistance is always the same. This same process is created by my way of painting, using all kinds of mediums and materials. Competing colors, textures, different consistencies of paint overlap and interact in dynamic ways. In this way the coincidence is offered as much chances as possible with the delicious possibility of unexpected results. Because I am much more driven by curiosity and the pure pleasure of experimenting than by intellectual concepts, I use these coincidental effects to initiate the creation process. Although the first layers are chaotic, in the end, for me the painting should have a good balance between energy and stillness and a captivating composition. The work has different degrees of abstraction, but is never completely abstract, because the great suggestive power of painting has always been my inspiration. But it is fantasy, it is never my intention to mimic flowers or leaves, it is just that my way of working creates organic forms that are reminiscent of shapes of nature.
Of course she measures the success of an exhibition by sales, Stefanie Augarde admits. "But just as much on the feedback," the gallery owner emphasises. In the case of Ena Rutten, sales were excellent (14 paintings in total) and the feedback was extremely positive and enthusiastic.
(August 2022, Zeitung für den Landkreis Vulkaneifel, about the exhibition in Galerie-Augarde-Daun)
"These compositions are like poetry. Varied shapes and pleasant colors depict a romantic atmosphere with the taste of nostalgia. Wandering in a nice environment, an unspoilt nature, a garden without snakes, an inner world without sin and the absence of suffering. With these paintings, all this tastes like “being kissed by the Gods!” From the speech of Willebrord de Winter at the exhibition in Franz Pfannerhuis, 2021
"The landscapes are imaginary. Like the streams, they only exist on canvas. Not one of the florals grows in a park or a garden; maybe underwater, but that's not certain. The portraits were never flesh and blood people. From a distance they are delicate, soft and young, but up close the skin of paint turns out to be irregular and damaged.
On closer inspection, the stillness appears to be extraordinarily lively in all paintings". From the interview with Kees Verbeek, 2020
"The paint applied layer over layer, color over color, using a light structure, and then in this size, ensures that the work enters the experience immediately and continues to fascinate. Moreover, it is a beautiful, timeless portrait". Gallery owner Lia Hector, 2019.
"A special game of colors and forms. Both form and color are fantasy but nevertheless it is as if you go under water as a deep sea diver."
From the juryreport of Painting of the year 2018
"Landscapes you will not find anywhere on a map. However, much of what we see is well known to us. Empty plains - once seen on a holiday trip - with a magnificent emptiness, as if you could never walk in it. Ena rightly calls her fictive landscapes: "Days Without Us". It gives me the feeling that the beauty of this world can only be experienced at a distance and in silence."
From the speech of Willebrord de Winter (former director of the Amsterdam Academy of Arts) at the exhibition "Ver-Gezichten" in the museum Het Petershuis in Gennep 2015.
"In her paintings it seems as if the world stands still, holds on for a moment. These lonely, quiet, motionless motives are at the same time meaningful and symbolic. In subtile colors the composition spreads out, nothing distracts the observer, nothing comments or decorates her depiction. Her works invites us to linger, to lay back and contemplate."
From the speech of Josef Gülpers, art historian, at the exhibition "Höher immer weiter" in Duisburg, Germany 2014
