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Burning up the Artist 

Burning up the Artist is an overarching concept that consists of multiple interdisciplinary works made in the second half of 2021. Within these works the boundaries of art and the self are questioned and tested.

Blind Date collaboration

'Practice for Dying'

A performance by 3rd year codarts students dance and composition & 3rd year Willem de Kooning Fine Arts students (2021)

What is wrong with being a drama queen? Why can people write music about dramatic events but when I make visual art there is less space for the drama.  

Dear Shapes In Space​ 

Again my thoughts have become a sad diary

Of the teenager I never vowed to be

Again

 

Dear diary,

I keep myself a prisoner of the love you do or do not dare to give to me.

This is to the person who gave you nothing by giving you all.

 

Yet again, as I am sitting here in front of you, I am bargaining for my life, my love, my heart.

Don’t punish me for it like the last one did. For I had told my sins to stay away this time.

 

Oh how I thought I learned so well...

But the truth is, I am bleeding here to death.

 

That’s why I ask you

Beg you

No not you

Myself

To not get slaughtered this time.

'Burning up the Artist'

Performance at WORM, Rotterdam (2021)

Burning up the Artist

I don't have any boundaries when it comes to art. In my work I have the tendency to burn up. I always give too much, so that in the end there is almost nothing left of me and I have to rebuild myself from scratch. These works show how that feels.   

winterlicht Schiedam Burning up the Artist

Winterlicht

'Burning up the Artist'

The outcome of all these works are different but also the same. Burning up is always a ritual that contains elements of body parts and candles. 

Winterlicht Schiedam Burning up the Artist

Installation, Grote Kerk Schiedam (2021)

Burning up the Artist

Winterlicht is a light festival that takes place in a park Schiedam. Due to covid-19 measurements the festival couldn't take place the way it was intended. Instead it became an exhibition for eight students of the Willem de Kooning Academy in the grote kerk in Schiedam.

the burn scale

HP Numbers

'The Burn Scale'

The Burn Scale                                                                                 

The pain scale has been invented to tell doctors in how much pain you are, without them having to hear the suffering of the patient in detail (Trifan, 2019). The truth is, numbers simply can’t describe pain to the full extend, as it is a feeling unique for everyone (Biss, 2007). What happens when a similar scale is created that monitors the degree of burning up? The burn scale could, in theory, help to show suffering in future works. But putting my feelings into numbers is an impossible task. So, in that sense my scale relates to the pain scale essay of Eula Biss (2007).

 

©Lío Spinnewijn 2025

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