Bernice Nauta’s works are more or less relics from the stories of her protagonists. By working from the points of view of these personalities, Nauta (1991, Deventer, NL) feels free to keep a kind of personal distance from the works she makes, whether they are paintings, drawings, sculptures, video’s or music.

In her work a handful of characters continuously return. Figures like Schelm, Figure T, Skia, Prototapians, Benny Snouta, Prosper Desmet and Positive Cowboy all have their own personality, biography and meaning. Each character represents its own perspective on the same life. Some play the role of a trickster, an archetype used in classical myths and stories, with ambiguous features. A character who knows how to undermine the pressure of authority and constantly changes its shape.

The different characters form a fictional autobiography. This autobiography is grounded in her idea that the subject (self) is unstable. She considers her mind as a place for countless heteronyms; a form of a pseudonym in which an artist creates a fictional other personality. Heteronyms have their own style and sometimes even have conflicting views. In portraits and scenes, videos, fictional newspapers, sculptures and fabricated props she show glimpses of the characters, where the viewer is invited to construct and knit together the shattered story lines.

Graduated at the KABK, BA Fine Arts, The Hague, in 2009, her work has been awarderd with the Werkbijdrage Jong Talent, Mondriaan fonds, NL (2016) PRO Invest subsidy, Stroom, Den Haag, NL (2015) and Buning Brongersprijs, nominated, Amsterdam, NL (2014). Bernice Nauta is a participant of artist-run-gallery Billytown in The Hague, where she also has her studio.

Residence in collaboration with 1646 (Stichting Project Space 1646, The Hague, NL).
As part of this exchange, during the months of November 2017 and January 2018, the artist from Cantabria Raúl Hevia will be part of the residency program of 1646.
1646 is a contemporary art platform for new productions and presentations with special emphasis on encouraging artists to realise new projects on location. The main focus of 1646’s residency programme is to provide artists with the space to research and focus on their own practice. The residency also offers a context for exchange with the organisation and its activities and the local and national art context.