Text

How thick can it get? The answer to this question is contained in the metal ring around the young tree. The ring protects the tree, but in time it will grow around and over it. With the ring around the little tree, the makers of the work of art, Willemien de Bruijn and Bert Haaitsma, emphasise the growth of the youngster. Their sculpture is a call for space for young life. And that message comes across powerfully.

No more than a sprout was the tree at the unveiling of 'Small trees, Sweat dreams' in the Zuiderpark in 1999. A sprout planted exactly in the middle of a wide, blue-coated steel ring. The title is part of the work of art itself, because the letters have been cut out of the ring. Tree and ring stand for the organic and the abstract. The artist duo combines both elements more often. In this way, they want the viewer to share their admiration for subjects such as friendship, archetypes and the vitality of nature.

These themes have bound and inspired De Bruijn and Haaitsma since the start of their collaboration in 1984. In addition, they invariably try to express the feeling of freedom that they experienced during their youth in the Netherlands during the reconstruction of the fifties of the 20th century. Small trees, Sweat dreams' unites the elements of their themes and formal language: containment and freedom, dynamic growth and static steel, abstraction and nature. They collide and merge harmoniously, to eventually become intertwined and one. For it is inevitable that tree and ring will merge in the future.