Ansuya Blom: SOLO

Over the past forty years, Ansuya Blom (Groningen, 1956) has built up a body of work in which she explores the boundaries of the inner world of experience. In drawings, collages, films and installations, she unravels the complex relationship between the individual and the outside world. This relationship is often accompanied by misconceptions and confusion. Blom went to art school before obtaining a master’s degree in psychoanalytic studies. She incorporates her interest in the human psyche, psychiatry and the abject into her work, analysing scientific attempts to make sense of the life of the mind. Her films and drawings are based on patients’ case files and biographies of diverse individuals. She pays particular attention to people who do not conform to the dominant normative standards. Instead of classifying people and seeing them as deviant, Blom resists the very definitions and imposed structures we use to try to get a grip on the world. It is precisely in these demarcations that a danger of limitation and control lurks. Blom’s work gets under the skin and reveals her quest. For Oud Amelisweerd country house, Blom designed a spatial intervention that divides the rooms, but also connects them.

Contemporary art in a historic country estate
From 2022 to 2026, Oud Amelisweerd Country House will play host to Central Museum. From spring to autumn for the next five years, this beautiful country estate will form the backdrop for a solo exhibition by a renowned Dutch contemporary artist. On the first floor of the house, the museum will give artists carte blanche to present works that interact with the historical interiors. The Centraal Museum is no stranger to Oud Amelisweerd. At the end of the 1980s, when the house was in decline, some members of the museum’s staff took care of it and organised exhibitions here. With this new series of exhibitions, the museum is once again contributing to keeping this important part of Utrecht’s cultural heritage alive. We hope to turn this historic country estate into a contemporary sanctuary and to create unique artistic experiences for both art lovers and visitors to the park. Ansuya Blom is the fifth artist in this series and her films and installation with drawings will be exhibited from March 23 until June 30, 2024. Rory Pilgrim’s work will be shown from July 13 until October 27, 2024.

This programme is a partner project of Hartwig Art Foundation.