life with my mother Evelien La Sud, 1999 ENG

I grew up in a ruin that grew into a home. Built from the beautiful stones picked up in the countryside, then almost totally abandoned, with no particular project in view but the needs of everyday life, of basic necessity.
I grew up in a ruin that grew into a home. Built from the beautiful stones picked up in the countryside, then almost totally abandoned, with no particular project in view but the needs of everyday life, of basic necessity. Today this place has its own identity, linked to this site, to its own surroundings and to the natural environment . Historical and cultural memory has to be kept alive, and constantly realized. There can be no conflict of interests, but a richer understanding, that most vital guiding force, that in the restoration of ancient pathways represents our real source of wealth.

Our house is a vast sculpture that like an oak continues to grow. The fascination of oaks and holmoaks in the woods is great because their huge trunks and leafy heights make us feel, almost to see, the lymph rising to reach the top leaves and thanks to the sun, return to the air as oxygen.

I can confidently say that in my life I have been constantly nourished by art. Only later did I discover that in this world art is not everything. The energy imprisoned by art is powerful; I remember one evening, when my brother said he was frightened, but he didn’t understand why. It was for the new work that our mother, Evelien La Sud was embarking on. It’s something I also feel, the fear of losing one’s identity, overwhelmed by such a powerful rush of energy. Her art is like that, it asks for total abandonment and reveals secret visions; limitless extensions.

Evelien’s works are like roots , vital transmitters, through which the lymph is conveyed. From her I learnt that we are surrounded by great sources of strength, to which I can turn to receive the energy I need to fulfil my desires

Anyone confronted with Evelien or with her work, is faced with an energy, an accumulated experience of a life lived, that she transformed into sculptures, paintings, portraits, and so transforming the invisible into the visible. Her personality ranges from the depths of unsettling thoughts, to the joy of living in total freedom; from the delicacy of a bud unfolding to the power of erupting volcanic magma. She is impossible to pin down, when I think I have reached her she has already moved on: she manages it all with the skill of an acrobat. Like the generous landscape surrounding us, a paradise at first sight, with the unfolding of the seasons ranging from the baking heat of summer to the freezing cold of winter. Worked by man, coloured from time to time by the random input of the wind, insects, or of man himself , seeds then produce flowers, plants and trees
She, a point of encounter between east and west, one in search of her own identity, the other in search of an identity in everything: something perhaps beyond man. Her commitment to art was constant, linked to the basics of daily life, such as cooking, bringing up her children and her destiny to create art. Art is the song of life.

Jade Vlietstra 1999