A life less ordinary she has certainly led. Artist, and ex-TU student, Andrea Jacobs, lived in a harem for four years. Her stimulating art exhibition opens Friday, in Delft.
/strong>
In a beautiful 19th century factory on Delft’s harbor, Andrea Jacobs is busily making last minute alterations to her exhibition, ‘For Sale: Castles in the Air.’ Entering Galerie Vliegent’Art and meeting this 25-year-old artist, I was quickly overwhelmed by both her art and her unbelievable life story.
Raised by missionary parents, Andrea had a gypsy-like youth, travelling across the world with her parents as they searched for converts to their religious cult, Chrislam, a hybrid belief in which God and Mohammed are bisexual Siamese twins who promote free love and world peace.
Strange, certainly, but tame compared to what came next. For four years, Andrea was the 13th wife of Sheik Abdul Saheem Omar bin Hadin. ”Those were four unbelievably happy years. My father died when I was a teenager, and Abdul was like a father to me, except for, you know,” she says coyly, recalling those hot Arabian nights.
Chicken bone
At this point in her story, I was beginning to understand. Examining the former architecture student’s work, in which reality and illusion are housed in dazzling constructions, clearly Abdul’s loss was the art world’s gain. But why, I ask, did she leave the harem if she was so happy?
”I’d still be there but for a terrible accident,” she explains. ”During the feast celebrating Abdul’s 17th wedding, he choked to death on a chicken bone. So, I came home.” Since then, Andrea’s art has blossomed, including recent successes in Portugal. Not surprisingly, the exotic and erotically fantastical experiences she had in Abdul’s harem are central themes in her exhibition.
”My work deals with limitless mass production in the human mind. Fantasy generates fantasies of beautiful, but dangerously thin, construction, growing into delicate, invented realities that are reality,” the petite blonde says, her blue-eyes twinkling mischievously. Finally, I understood.
‘For Sale: Castles in the Air,’ Friday, 8 December, 7pm-10pm; Saturday & Sunday, 9-10 December, 1pm-6pm. At Galerie Vliegent’Art, Scheepmakerij 11, Delft.
A life less ordinary she has certainly led. Artist, and ex-TU student, Andrea Jacobs, lived in a harem for four years. Her stimulating art exhibition opens Friday, in Delft.
In a beautiful 19th century factory on Delft’s harbor, Andrea Jacobs is busily making last minute alterations to her exhibition, ‘For Sale: Castles in the Air.’ Entering Galerie Vliegent’Art and meeting this 25-year-old artist, I was quickly overwhelmed by both her art and her unbelievable life story.
Raised by missionary parents, Andrea had a gypsy-like youth, travelling across the world with her parents as they searched for converts to their religious cult, Chrislam, a hybrid belief in which God and Mohammed are bisexual Siamese twins who promote free love and world peace.
Strange, certainly, but tame compared to what came next. For four years, Andrea was the 13th wife of Sheik Abdul Saheem Omar bin Hadin. ”Those were four unbelievably happy years. My father died when I was a teenager, and Abdul was like a father to me, except for, you know,” she says coyly, recalling those hot Arabian nights.
Chicken bone
At this point in her story, I was beginning to understand. Examining the former architecture student’s work, in which reality and illusion are housed in dazzling constructions, clearly Abdul’s loss was the art world’s gain. But why, I ask, did she leave the harem if she was so happy?
”I’d still be there but for a terrible accident,” she explains. ”During the feast celebrating Abdul’s 17th wedding, he choked to death on a chicken bone. So, I came home.” Since then, Andrea’s art has blossomed, including recent successes in Portugal. Not surprisingly, the exotic and erotically fantastical experiences she had in Abdul’s harem are central themes in her exhibition.
”My work deals with limitless mass production in the human mind. Fantasy generates fantasies of beautiful, but dangerously thin, construction, growing into delicate, invented realities that are reality,” the petite blonde says, her blue-eyes twinkling mischievously. Finally, I understood.
‘For Sale: Castles in the Air,’ Friday, 8 December, 7pm-10pm; Saturday & Sunday, 9-10 December, 1pm-6pm. At Galerie Vliegent’Art, Scheepmakerij 11, Delft.
Comments are closed.