January 25 - March 22, 2013

The exhibition "Color at the Center" will present the work of Fransje Killaars to North American audiences through a traveling exhibition that includes a new work commissioned by the Bates College Museum of Art.

Killaars, born in 1959, places color at the center of her practice. Her installations exist in a space that merges painting, fashion, architecture and interior design. Her work is imbued with the handmade and functional aspects of craft. Her installations may combine fabrics from Japan, blankets designed by the artist and hand-woven in India, and draped figures evoking contemporary and historic representations of women.

For the Lewiston exhibition, Killaars will create several installations, including the dazzling “24 Hours” and “Figures” in their first U.S. appearances.

In addition, Bates is partnering with Museum L-A, which chronicles the history of work, industry and community in Lewiston and Auburn, to bring part of the exhibition to downtown Lewiston.

Killaars will create several installations at Museum L-A in a space within the Bates Mill Complex where the popular Bates-brand bedspreads formerly were manufactured. One of the installations will be created out of materials woven in this space.

In 1990, just as Killaars was establishing a strong career as a painter in the Netherlands, she traveled to India, the first of a number of trips there that shaped her practice in profound ways.

“Everything in this chaotic world [India] is colourful,” she wrote. In India, “I discovered the power of colour as a part of everyday life.”

Fransje Killaars: Color at the Center is curated by Bates College Museum of Art Director Dan Mills and is organized by the Bates museum. The exhibition will travel to the Ewing Gallery of Art and Architecture at the University of Tennessee, and to Galerie Zürcher in New York. The exhibition is accompanied by Fransje Killaars, a profusely illustrated 176-page hardcover book published in 2012 by 010 Publishers in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

This project is supported in part by the Mondriaan Fund and public funds from the Consulate General of The Netherlands in New York. Killaars’ Bates visit is supported by a Bates Learning Associates Program Grant funded by the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation. Her work is presented courtesy of Galerie de Expeditie, Amsterdam.

photos: James Aaron Helms