Exhibition: TOTOK – INDISCH BESEF

https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2023/04/21/kritische-getuigenissen-over-het-indische-verleden-a4162706

07/04/23 – 29/04/23

What Art Can Do – Tweede Tuindwarsstraat 4, Amsterdam

Clementine Oomes
MAMA SAYA – MIJN MOEDER

Clementine Oomes presents with the series titled Mama Saya, a powerful new body of work inspired by her mother’s harrowing experiences in a Japanese concentration camp in Indonesia during World War II. For three and a half years, her mother, along with her own mother and sister, was imprisoned in a cell at the Aek Pamienke camp on Sumatra.

Through an intuitive visual language, Oomes transforms the pain of the past into striking artistic expression. She employs optical spatiality to draw the viewer into vast, gaping voids—spaces that can be perceived as ominous and destructive or, conversely, as pathways to freedom and transcendence. Using bright white tones, she abstracts the concept of captivity, elevating it to a universal theme that speaks to all of us.

As a second-generation war survivor, Oomes deeply understands the lasting impact of trauma. “My mother fell from a fairy tale into a nightmare. She survived by building an armor around herself—she had to. But we, her children, had to survive too… later, together with her.”