Behind the artist: Hedy Tjin shares her insights into addressing social issues with art.

Hi Hedy, we all have our dream jobs as children. Did you dream of becoming a visual artist?

As a small child, I was always drawing, painting and creating. I wasn't 100% sure I wanted to be an illustrator, but I definitely wanted to do something creative.

How would you describe your art?

I would say it is accessible. It ranges from figurative to more abstract works. Most of the time, I call myself an illustrative designer.

So you would say that your time in Paramaribo had a major influence on your art?

Absolutely. When I'm in Suriname, I feel more inspired by the mental peace I experience. In the Netherlands, we are always in a hurry and feel like we need to do something. In Paramaribo, I was able to sit back with my sketchbook and draw a set of markers and all kinds of landscapes that piqued my interest. At some point, I started taking pictures of family members and people I met on the street and challenged myself to only use color markers. That felt great, I felt inspired, it was very meditative, and the results were better than I expected. It felt more honest, more direct and more pure.

So you would say that your time in Paramaribo has had a big influence on your artwork?

Definitely. When I'm in Surinam, I feel more inspired because of the mental peace I experience. In the Netherlands we're always in a rush and there's always this feeling of having to do something. In Paramaribo, I could sit back with my sketch book and a set of markers and draw all kinds of scenery that sparked my interest. At one point I started taking pictures of family members and people I met on the street and challenged myself to use color markers only. That felt amazing, I felt inspired, it was very meditative and the results were better than I expected. It felt more honest, direct and pure.

What's your favorite work of art?

My favorite project was when I painted a shaved ice cream cart in Surinam. My great grandfather introduced shaved ice cream in Surinam and now many years later you can find these carts on almost every corner. It's a tradition for cart owners and busses to have the most beautiful paintings on them in order to attract a lot of customers. As an ode to my grandfather, I wanted to paint a cart. My friend back then loved making all sorts of mini documentaries. We would walk through the city together, scouting for shaved ice cream carts that could use some touching up. Once we found one, I told the owner my story and how I would love to paint his cart. He could not believe that I wanted to do it for free — as painting jobs can be quite expensive. I asked him to bring me the cart on Friday morning and to pick it back up on Sunday evening. He traversed the whole city with his cart and left it for me to paint. On Sunday evening he picked up the car and was lost for words; that gave me a fantastic feeling.

So you would say that your time in Paramaribo has had a big influence on your artwork?

Definitely. When I'm in Surinam, I feel more inspired because of the mental peace I experience. In the Netherlands we're always in a rush and there's always this feeling of having to do something. In Paramaribo, I could sit back with my sketch book and a set of markers and draw all kinds of scenery that sparked my interest. At one point I started taking pictures of family members and people I met on the street and challenged myself to use color markers only. That felt amazing, I felt inspired, it was very meditative and the results were better than I expected. It felt more honest, direct and pure.

What's your favorite work of art?

My favorite project was when I painted a shaved ice cream cart in Surinam. My great grandfather introduced shaved ice cream in Surinam and now many years later you can find these carts on almost every corner. It's a tradition for cart owners and busses to have the most beautiful paintings on them in order to attract a lot of customers. As an ode to my grandfather, I wanted to paint a cart. My friend back then loved making all sorts of mini documentaries. We would walk through the city together, scouting for shaved ice cream carts that could use some touching up. Once we found one, I told the owner my story and how I would love to paint his cart. He could not believe that I wanted to do it for free — as painting jobs can be quite expensive. I asked him to bring me the cart on Friday morning and to pick it back up on Sunday evening. He traversed the whole city with his cart and left it for me to paint. On Sunday evening he picked up the car and was lost for words; that gave me a fantastic feeling.

There's a lot of diversity in your projects; you work on personal projects but you've also got a lot of projects going on with a more serious notion to it. In collaboration with United Paintings and Defend Noord, you painted a big mural of victims of anti-black violence at Tolhuistuin. Could you tell me more about that?

Brian Elstak is a big support to me, I believe that 8 out of the 10 projects I work on, I got because of him. Brian gave my number to Massih Hutak (founder of Defend North) just before he also moved into A Lab. He asked me if I wanted to portray victims of anti-black violence on the wall at Tolhuistuin. It was days after the black lives matter protest on Dam square and I was so fired up by it all that even though time-wise I was not sure if I was going to make it - I thought: let's do it. I thought: If that's my way of being able to contribute, then I'm going to do it, it felt like an outlet to me.

I also felt that it was a nice way to express the problem. In this age we're very saturated with information. In this mural there are no words, it's just something you can see. People are intrigued by its colours and are inclined to think about what they're seeing. It's a nice way to make people aware.

It's not the first time you paint or illustrate for social themes. Your illustrations are regularly on the cover of newspapers or may it be - very big walls. Is this something you want to do more often or something you want to keep on doing?

I find it important to be socially involved, it's nice to be able to contribute and I enjoy making illustrations that empower and activate the discussion on certain social themes. That said I don't want to become type casted like some actors; to only get asked for illustrative projects on social themes, because I do more than that. I enjoy the combination of working on both illustrations for social themes as well as working on personal projects. Sometimes I like for my work to be less about the message and more about the feeling. I enjoy illustrating friends, family and some scenes. But I'm in a good place right now, both forms are coming together while I have the freedom to stay close to my own working style.

Do you believe that creating both illustrations for social topics as well as doing personal projects create a balance that gives you the power to do both? One is an outlet to blow off steam while the other gives you mental peace and lets your imagination flow?

Definitely. As an artist, you can sometimes ask yourself 'what am I doing that contributes to a better world? ' you ask yourself 'am I just creating images? ' - it's then great to be able to have this opportunity to work on illustrations for social topics.

If there was one social topic you could contribute to with your artwork, what it would be?

The black lives matter movement. For this movement I also painted other heroic Surinam people on the walls of the building of the Black Archives. Something different but close to my heart is the mural I made of Aletta Jacobs in Groningen — she is the first woman in the Netherlands to go to university. I'm also happy with the mural I made by Vincent van Gogh in Nijmegen. The mural of van Gogh is a reminder that you can't be perfect as a person, that doing your own thing is good enough. Back in the day, people found his work odd or evenstrange, but eventually it was highly appreciated. This shows that doing your own thing is the best you can do. These kind of messages or topics are things I highly support.

A Lab is a hotspot for creatives, how do you experience working here?

Speaking for the Superfriends studio we really enjoy the nice vibe and atmosphere in A Lab, there's always this close A Lab family present at every event, that's really nice. And of course we love team A Lab!

What would you like to achieve or create in the future?

I like the way things are going right now and I like to go with the flow. But if there's one thing I would really enjoy doing is to paint the facade of a big building. For the rest I just want to do more of everything I'm already doing all the while being able to maintain as much as artistic freedom within projects as possible. I want to keep on growing, developing and challenging myself with my work.