There is a light that never goes out

Hadassah Emmerich takes her inspiration from far away and from close-by. Her oriental roots are clearly identifiable in her imagery, but graffiti, advertising and kitsch are also strongly present in her work. She combines exoticism and primitivism with the irony and ambiguity of the modern multicultural and multimedia society to create a intense passionate expression. The bright yellows, purples and greens that marked her earlier work have been replaced by subdued dark ochres and blacks, and the happy notion of living in multiple cultures gave way to feelings of displacement and melancholia. Painting murals – working on a large scale – is to Hadassah all about place- and time based art. ‘You literally do not have to carry the weight of the work with you,’ she says. For Emmerich, tiles and ceramics have another connotation relating to the social utopia that the Bijlmer once was. Mosaics, frescos and tile remind her of the time in which socio-realistic art in public spaces was the idealistic manifestation of a new post-war society. An ideal that now seems to have taken on a nostalgic allure – but may perhaps be rediscovered in Open Source Amsterdam.

Hadassah Emmerich

1974, Heerlen, NL. Lives and works in Berlin, DE

Emmerich’s art is seductive, decorative and intense. But she does not set out merely to please. The seductiveness is a way of arresting our attention. Then she confronts us with the deeper layers of her work, which broach themes such as identity. Emmerich includes stereotypes of remote peoples, such as Indonesian islanders and Hawaiian hula-hula girls, in her scenes. But if you look more closely, you discover tiny skulls incorporated into the figures’ wreaths. With her Jewish first name and German last name, as well as her Dutch, Indonesian and Chinese ancestry, Haddassah Emmerich personifies – and her work exemplifies – a global mix of histories and cultures.

www.hadassahemmerich.com