The Tulips Are Too Excitable, It Is Winter Here
Helen Beard's exhibition The Tulips Are Too Excitable, It Is Winter Here at the Reflex Gallery in Amsterdam is a burst of color and emotion. In the colorful paintings, she explores how memories are stored, shared, and altered within the body and the mind. The vast planes of color on the canvases are not only a nod to Picasso’s blue period, but are meant to bear resemblance to fields of blooming tulips in the springtime, signifying the transformation that comes with changing seasons.
As a lover of all things color, the combinations Beard chose for the canvases, were one of my favorite aspects of the paintings. In combination with the thick brushstrokes, it made them feel monumental in the otherwise quite minimalistic space of the gallery. The other stand-out part was the framing, which felt purposeful and vivid and played into the size of the bigger canvases, which allowed them to almost feel like a movie screen of sorts. The contrast of the bigger and smaller paintings hung right next to each other made it obvious that size does matter in this case (at least to me). Then again, it was an interesting juxtaposition that made it possible to appreciate different parts of the paintings depending on their size. While the bigger canvases wowed me, the smaller ones gave me a chance to look closer at some of the detailed lines and compare the brushstrokes on each.
In contrast to Picasso’s infamous period this exhibition was full of optimism, specifically stemming from the complimentary colors Beard used. I liked this idea she brought forward about altering and romanticizing experiences as we store them away in our bodies. That in itself is maybe not new, but translated into color, it invited you to look into the mirror. It really struck me how it made me think about my own memories and experiences. As I wandered through the gallery, I found myself questioning how much of my own history I had romanticized or distorted in my mind over time. Had I colored my own memories with the same vivid, emotional brushstrokes as Beard had done in her paintings? It was a powerful reminder that our memories are not just abstract concepts, but physical and emotional experiences that live on in our bodies and shape the way we view the world. And in the end, that's what makes this exhibition so truly engaging - not just the beauty of the paintings themselves, but the way they make us think and feel long after we've left the gallery.