Michael Barnes – The miracle of artist Micky Hoogendijk

She stands in the middle of the gallery, her posture grounded, her hair braided around her head in a no-nonsense manner, her eyes open with emotional wisdom. Given her long white tunic and delicate sandals, she looks in this late afternoon light as if she stepped out of a Pre-Raphaelite painting.

Photographer Micky Hoogendijk is like no other visual artist. And today she gives an interview that’s a breath of fresh air on a hot day. No dry theories. No tedious explanations of process. No jargon meant to impress a dozen or so like-minded artists.

“All my art came out in Austin,” she says. “I was living up on Panorama Drive, surrounded by nature. And as soon as I started working with Austin models, there was an openness about them that I haven’t found anywhere else.”

Since her first show at the Davis Gallery just three years ago, the Dutch-born Hoogendijk has expanded her visual vocabulary enormously. She started with layered portraits of mostly Austinites, some masked by various means, many of them androgynous, all of them full of feeling, haunted by a touch of vulnerability.

MORE: Photographer Micky Hoogendijk sees in dreams.
http://www.mystatesman.com/entertainment/photographer-micky-hoogendijk-sees-dreams/qQ21RSCmEUxusoT0Q5hxzJ/

Now for “Pure Imagination” at Women & Their Work Gallery through Sept. 7 — also in her new book, “Through the Eyes of Others I See Me” — Hoogendijk plays with historical costuming, underwater dancing, paired, seated nudes, moody interiors and variant looks at mysterious objects.

“I work from my dreams,” she says. “I can’t do anything different.”

She also spends time looking into eyes.

“We’d do that in rehearsal,” she recalls of her acting career. “While looking steadily into someone’s eyes, you get nervous, distracted, you touch your nose or giggle. Eventually you end up crying. We don’t do that in life, even when we are married, looking for so long into another’s eyes.”

The current show is spare, only 12 pieces, giving each image its own space and story, but the book rewards anyone curious to see more of her unfettered imagination.

Now based in Los Angeles, Hoogendijk has spent the past three years following her artistic career from prominent show to prominent show across three continents. She continues to experiment with printing methods, including some ghostly images parlayed on metal (“Metal has a depth to it.”).

She also thinks of putting down roots again in the Netherlands.

“I’ve created a whole new life,” she says. “But I’ve been living out of a suitcase. For the artist in me, I need calm. I want to be on my own and maybe fall in love again.”

Austin360, August 5, 2017

http://arts.blog.austin360.com/2017/08/05/the-miracle-of-artist-micky-hoogendijk/