Description
The children of Jombang I In this triptych, Eva Margaretha deliberately chooses the portrait. Not to repeat archival images, but to give children a face. Faces that do not speak from documents, but look back at the viewer. The works draw on the history of Jombang in East Java, a place where generations of mixed families emerged and where many children, due to poverty and social exclusion, were placed in institutions.
The portraits are informed by archival research in the collections of Leiden University Libraries, where Margaretha encountered traces of her own family history. This shifts the perspective: these children are not anonymous figures from the past, but part of a continuous history of which the artist herself is an heir.
Care offered structure, education, and opportunity, while also demanding adaptation and obedience. Working with corrigible materials. Margaretha reveals how identity is shaped under pressure, and how faces endure beyond the systems that produced them.
The children of Jombang I is presented in a heavy, rustic, hand-built wooden frame that forms an integral part of the work itself. The frame is not a neutral support, but a constructed boundary that reinforces the weight and authority of the word it holds. As a self-contained object, the work occupies the space with physical presence, echoing the historical structures embedded in language.
Artwork size approx. 70 × 90 cm
Framed size approx. 100 × 120 cm
Charcoal, India ink, bistre, gesso and oilstick on canvas
The artworks are part of the solo exhibition by Eva Margaretha at Galerie Wind, Rotterdam, from 15 February to 15 March. Opening: 15 February at 3 pm. The works will be available after the exhibition.
