The impressive work of Magda Zimmerman and Kees Elffers can be admired from 1 July till 27 September 2023 in WTC Amsterdam.
About Magda Zimmerman
After her dancing career, Magda made the switch to visual art and she graduated from the Rietveld Academy in 1996. Since then Magda has been working as an independent artist in her beautiful studio in Amsterdam East. There she works on assignments all over the world and develops her free art. And twice a week there is room for a lot of fun during the painting lessons in which Magda guides students in developing their own painting art.
Magda’s paintings emerge slowly. Building it up layer upon layer. She can apply the techniques of the old and modern masters but the action of painting itself continues to amaze her. She likes to paint with oils. Infinitely mixing colors, making a messy mess, smoothing out softly. What remains unspoken finds its way onto the canvas. Quiet, vulnerable, loving, protective.
At the moment Magda is working on a special serie ‘On the Path’. It is a translation of her long walks in nature. The silence, the endless space, the beautiful colors and shapes, the energy of the elements, the unexpected and so much more. It makes a deep impression on her and reinforces her conviction that we are one with nature, but have also strayed far from it.
The paintings are a message to reconnect more with our inner self and the environment around us. To become more aware of the damage we cause by endlessly grabbing and exploiting and thus destroying our natural environment.
The energy of the paintings invites you to enter the landscape and also make the journey inward and experience peace and stillness in your own inner landscape.
In her portraits Magda gets close to the skin and tries to capture the likeness of the person. Character and appearance play a major role in this. But the space and atmosphere that envelop the person are just as important. The overall image shows the silent connection of the inner world and the manifestation of the person in the outer world.
About Kees Elffers
Kees Elffers prefers to use rough materials for his sculptures, such as metal, stone, wood and sand. He often explores the interaction of these sculptures with trees and shrubs, so his sculptures blend in well in a garden.
He uses several themes, escaping from captivity is one of them, a metal cage from which something has escaped is on display here (“Great Escape”).
As every artist he is obsessed with (lack of) money, so on this exhibition he also shows some sculptures with the titles: “Money comes and goes”, “Swimming in money”, and “Better safe than sorry”.
Through the years he has made many sculptures in which he tries to make configurations with several (semi-)round shapes. The space in between plays a part too.