Nelleke Beltjens: Complex/Incomplete Completion

Best known for her diminutive minimalist sculptures in steel or steel and concrete, Dutch artist, Nelleke Beltjens will exhibit two groups of drawings: “Complex” and “Incomplete Completion,” and two three-dimensional works in hardwood.

The ten large-scale drawings made with a draftsman’s rapid strokes represent a year of intense labor. The drawings overwhelm with their complexity, carefully walking a line between randomness and order. Multitudes of tiny marks form clouds of varying atmospheric density. In turn, areas of density demonstrate the importance of emptiness.

The sculptures inspire awe by being completely simple and at the same time totally unexpected.

Time spent with Beltjens’ work reveals that “something” only exists in relationship to “nothing” and that what isn’t there is at least as important as what is..