Liliane Konings
Maastricht 1960
After finishing her course of Creative Art at the Stadsacademie voor Toegepaste Kunsten in Maastricht where a lot of attention was given to three dimensional work, Liliane Konings (Maastricht, 1960) started to show a preference for two dimensional work and she started to concentrate more on drawing and painting. Through her mentors André Lubbers, Franscz Witte and Marlies Vonk, she managed to deepen and improve her techniques. At the same time workshops at home and abroad managed to enrich her talents.
Emotion plays a large part in Konings’ work. She puts her experiences from inside on paper, panel or canvas. She will use a variety of motifs; however, for her, a very important source of inspiration is poetry.
At first Konings tries to reproduce the emotional charge of an instant. She starts the work with fast brushmarks in bright and exuberant colours and abstract shapes. By using this fast technique that almost seems like sketching, it makes it possible to jot down the moments of emotion quickly. She sometimes saves the emotions in her mind to let them come out at a later date. However, even then she uses her brush freely. It seems her slogan is ”Don’t think but act”.
At a later stage, sometimes she doesn’t touch her work for days, Konings feels an irresistable pull towards the work, when she finishes it with a light and quick touch, showing poetic tendencies. It’s a true search to the inner meaning of the artwork.
In this way, several layers start to arise. Large and small areas of colour, alternation of a heavier touch with a lighter and more expressive touch combined with the structure of shapes that is present in the work, almost force the spectator to look at the work again and again to discover new elements all the time. The artist takes the spectator on a spontaneous journey to discover the meaning of life. For artist and spectator a painting becomes a way of life you can not be without and not just a struggle with matter.
