Catalogue The Fortune Teller

Juul Kraijer draws inspiration from such topics as mythology, Indian miniatures and nature. ‘I was about sixteen years old when my father and I visited London; in the Victoria & Albert Museum, I was touched by the beauty of Indian miniatures. Everything was there in minute detail, but simplified as it were. Perspective and realism weren't important, it was all about the intrinsic beauty.’

In Kraijer's work, a realistic perspective and the environment are also subjugated to the posture of the isolated women who adorn her drawings and photographs. They are universal figures whose necks dissolve into swarms of insects and whose heads of hair transform into branches and thorn bushes. Kraijer's performances seem to become one with the heavenly, and although art with mythical aspects is often about primitive anxieties, it is Asian serenity that dominates in Kraijer's work.