Robbin Heyker

Hunted Projects: Can you tell us a little about yourself and your creative background?

Robbin Heyker: I was born in the year 1976 and grew up in a small conservative farming village nearby The Hague. After my high school years, I decided to study Graphic and Typographic Design at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in The Hague. It took me some years to reconsider this decision. As much as I loved Typography and still do. My calligraphy teacher always told me, that I was born in the wrong era, my purpose in life should have been, living as a monk in the early middle ages, doing biblical calligraphy. But after 3 years of studying at this department, I switched to the painting department. This decision followed after my first encounter with a Baselitz painting. The confrontational recognition with this painting, made me realize that I wanted to become a painter.

HP: You are currently in residence at the fantastic CCA Andratx in Mallorca, can you tell us about your experience there and the work that you have focused on during your time?

RH: At the moment I am still residing at CCA Andratx, originally, I was booked in for the whole month of December. But because of the Covid-situation almost all of the January residents cancelled. So, I had the luck to stay longer in this amazing paradise. My experience here is very humble, it’s a monk kind of life I have here. The island is quiet, no tourists because of the pandemic, which makes it a peaceful place. The distances on the island are quite remote, I don’t have a driver’s license, and so most of my time here is spent in the studio and its close beautiful surroundings.

HP: Bird watching or birding plays a central role in the making of your works, where the colour palette present in your paintings owns a relational significance to the birds that you have spotted. Can you discuss the series of works exhibited within Birdplay?

RH: When I came up with the title ‘Birdplay’, I checked the meaning of it in the urban dictionary, which I always do before deciding upon a title. It means sexual foreplay. Which make sense to me, because the drawings serve me as a foreplay. All of the drawings refer to a specific bird I spotted during my stay here in Mallorca.

HP: What first attracted you to this concept? When and why did it begin?

RH: At the beginning of last year, I was stranded in a lockdown in Thailand. I was forced to stay on the island Phuket for four months. Not expecting that it would take this long, I didn’t set up shop. So, my art practice was mainly focusing on drawing. Besides this as a daily activity, I rediscovered an old childhood passion; bird watching. I never really stopped doing this, but this time I bought binoculars again. And fell in love again with chasing the invisible. It was in 2016 that I made my first two paintings in this concept, it was an attempt to bring in all the colours of a male duck, without painting the actual duck, executing them with a paint roller. In 2018 I rediscovered those paintings again, when I was cleaning up my studio. They struck me and I decided to make two reenactments of them but this time only with brushes.

Being overwhelmed by the total alien colour palettes of the Thai birds, which also seemed to have an overlap with the colours they use in their architecture, gave me the urge to push this concept of ‘birdplay’ further.

HP: The brush marks in the paintings appear to be layered in a specific order, with the layers being largely applied wet on dry. Is there a conscious layering of the colours?

RH: It’s a play between my rigid consciousness and the matter itself. One rule of my game is that all the colours of the specific bird should be present. Mostly I lay them in by loosely following the order of the body. And the strokes should be strokes. Just like making a mark, they are quick-fix solutions to painting birds, without literally painting a bird.

HP: Is there a specific bird that you are most fond of?

RH: For now, it is the goldfinch, it’s a little finch, that makes a cheerful sound and has an enigmatic yellow on his wings. In Thailand it was the white-throated kingfisher that struck me the most, because of his beautiful shades of emerald and also his funny laughing sound.

HP: Can you tell us about your studio and working routine? Do you have any morning rituals or habits that contribute towards a fulfilling day in the studio?

RH: Every new studio context gives me different routines. In CCA Andratx I start my day waking up in the studio with coffee and then I walk into the yard to pick some fresh oranges and lemons to make a nice juice. Combining this with a small breakfast. After this I feed six lovely cats that are part of the residency. Then I do some drawings or stretching canvases or office work. After lunch I go out for a long bird watching walk. Hunting for trophies, new colour palettes. In the afternoon I make my paintings. This can go one till late in the evening, because here I live in my studio, so there is no way to leave the office and go home.

HP: I am aware that you split your time between living in Beijing and The Hague. Can you tell us more about your division of time between these cities?

RH: Beijing was an accident in a positive way. In 2010 I got an invitation from a Dutch art-collector who started a gallery there, called C-Space (now CLC Gallery Venture), to curate a group exhibition with my work, placed in context with the work of Chinese contemporaries. As a curator I had a total freedom. The gallery space back than was enormous, it provided me with a spatial studio and apartment. Beijing and especially her vibrant art-scene made a big impact on me. It was very open and welcoming; a lot was happening. It felt like I discovered the new ‘Berlin’. I wanted to stay here for as long as possible, I stretched it to half a year. At the and of my stay I met my beautiful girlfriend. So, it is love that keeps me going back to China.

HP: The Coronavirus pandemic has been challenging and continues to affect the lives of everyone. To what extent has this pandemic affected you and your studio?

RH: I have the feeling that before this pandemic became really serious, I was always travelling just ahead of it. Somehow when I was leaving a country it started to become serious over there. I left China 2 days before Wuhan went into a lockdown. I left Thailand for some exhibitions in Europe. But upon my arrival the exhibitions immediately got cancelled. So, I decided to fly back to Thailand, this was 3 days before The Netherlands went into a lockdown. Some shows got cancelled, but I was able to do them later in 2020. But most of them are cancelled indefinitely.

HP: Have there been any positives outcomes that you can mention?

RH: During all the lockdowns I worked on a book about my work, together with the Belgian art historian/curator Hans Theys and graphic designer Julian Sirre. The book will be published in the middle of this year.

HP: What are your thoughts on the importance of social media today? Could you happily live with/without social media/Instagram?

RH: It’s a bit mixed. Instagram kind of works as an artist bar where you can hang out with fellow contemporaries from all over the world, which is really nice. But quit often it can also feel like a very dumb medium. But it brought me lot of good things, for example this exhibition at Hunted Projects and the lovely people of Galería Alegría, with whom I starting working with since 2018.

HP: Any last points or thoughts you would like to share?

RH: Let’s keep up the good work.