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Jescika Van Overveld
Biography
Jescika uses vivid colors to create imaginative scenes of animals and people. Art is an outlet that provides her with joy, which is evident in her energetic paintings. Images from her surroundings inpire her to interpretate day to day scenes. She plays with textures and brushtrokes to create interesting compositions. In her drawings, the way she draws animals and people, demostrate great observational skills mixed with a pinch of innocence.
Jescika Van Overveld, Evert Panis, and Sadya Keyrer live and create artwork at the Galerie Amsterdam, a center for outsider art in the Netherlands. Galerie Amsterdam is the home for people who have Down Syndrome. From painting and pottery, to theatre, Galerie Amsterdam carries a creative environment Their work recalls paintings by expressionist masters. Down Syndrome is a birth defect in which a baby is born with mental retardation. Some of them even experience heart problems and have trouble learning in school. The physical features include having a flatter face, upward slanting eyes, and a somewhat larger tounge. One in every 100 babies is born with Down Syndrome. Top art professors from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Gerrit Rietveld Academie Amsterdam, and Amsterdamse Hogeschool Voor de Konsten (Academy of Fine Arts) guide these artists. The artworks produced by them show how indivduals with Down Syndrome have a rich and complex interior mental life.
Article: Amsterdam Newspaper
The artist Jescika v.O, represents the province North Holland at the creation of the large National Work of Art for Queen Beatrix. She recently won a competition for artists with a mental handicap which had been organised on occassion of the 25th governing jubilee of Queen Beatrix.
Jessica won the competition with her painting of the Gouden Koets (the Golden Carriage) with Queen Beatrix, Prince Willem Alexander, Princes Maxima, Amalia and Princess Irene inside, driving down the canals in Amsterdam.
The commission of the competition was to make a drawing or painting with the subject of Queen Beatrix. One artist from each province and from the Dutch Antilles was selected to help in september with the creation of the large National Work of Art. This competition was organised by the Society of Very Special Arts Netherlands (VSAN). A few participants, amongst whom Jessica, of Atelier (studio) Kriekenoord of the Society AGO (daycare/day activities for people with a mental disorder) in Amsterdam took the commission seriously. She loaned books from the library with photos from the life of QUeen Beatrix and the royal family. Various paintings (I wonder if they mean photos rather?) were studied: from the wedding of Beatrix and Claus to one of Beatrix in a bright sundress with a sunhat in the garden of her castle.
As is clear from the title of her work, Jessica has painted a large format painting (80 x 100 cm) with the Golden Carriage prominently presented. Jessica has made the painting from memory but she could remember the Golden Carriage well as she had seen it a few years earlier at an exhibition in the New Church (Nieuwe Kerk) in Amsterdam. Jessica has been invited to help in Nijmegen in september with the large National Work of Art, which will be revealed on thursday 10 november in Apeldoorn. Jessica is curious to know whether the Queen will be present.Back