Noortje van der Kooi

Artist Statement – Noortje van der Kooi A living archive of earth, vision, and embodied truth. Aruba / Netherlands Artist Statement – Noortje van der Kooi I carry my creations the way one carries breath — close, vital, ever-flowing. These creations emerged alongside life itself. They lived in bedrooms, kitchens, suitcases, and yards. They travelled with me between Aruba and the Netherlands — not as inventory, but as living extensions of my being. Some have journeyed onward. Some remain. All belong. I create from presence. From what arises when imposed forms fall away. My vision moves beyond memory or story — it roots in what is revealed when I choose to see with clarity. My voice aligns with rhythm, not category. My materials are layered with meaning: Aruban earth, Dutch powders, oils, old cloth, feathers, inks. They arrive through living. They echo ancestry, place, and intuition. Each element is part of a deeper truth in form. My roots grow beyond categories and schools. I do not reject them — I witness from another ground. I grow through discernment, through care, through vision. I don’t reject — I am a re-rooting. Not of life, but of its reduction. My clarity roots in a choice to nourish and outgrow what has been confused, from a turning world towards a grounding earth. This offering is not resistance — it is space. It is an invitation to remember what is already within you. To breathe differently. To sense what your eyes may have forgotten to feel. Most of my physical creations come with rhyme and rhythm of spoken poetry— all on paper, but best to voice. They are born from the language of the unspoken child voiced, raised in the cultural surroundings of the Dutch middle class and elite, and now reshaped — not to belong to them, but to belong through them, as a powerful decoding of the Western cult. These works do not seek permission. They breathe in ancestral knowing…