Visual notes
by Patrick van Riemsdijk
Hidden among the trees, Yohaku is a place where art, nature and everyday life come together. You may first be welcomed by two Bernese Mountain Dogs, with birds in the background and the feeling that everything moves just a little slower here. It is a home as much as it is a gallery. Walk through it room by room. In each one, a single work, and the reason it hangs there.
You arrive through the pergola and the first thing you meet is light on a wall. I wanted the entrance to be almost empty: a bench, a brush left on the floor, one painting.
It sets the pace. Whatever you came with, you leave a little of it here.
There is a meditation room, a library, music to listen to properly, a kitchen to cook in, a garden to disappear into and horses nearby whose quiet presence has its own kind of energy. Only a small number of people are welcomed at a time. Not to make Yohaku exclusive, but to protect its sense of space and calm.
The salon is where the evenings happen. One lamp, one painting, and a conversation that does not need to go anywhere.
The warm room. Velvet, low light, the painting that gave the room its colour rather than the other way round.
In Sit Around the Fire, I reflect on the idea that even in difficult times, something within us always remains. Like a small ember, what feels almost lost can slowly grow into warmth again.
The long room at the heart of the house. White walls, a concrete floor, light from above and one piece standing in the middle. It is the one room that is only about looking.
The divider is painted on three panels and can be moved, so the room is never quite the same twice. Spend an hour with it and find out that an hour is not very long.
Books, one chair, and a wall the colour of moss. This is the room for spending an hour with a single painting and finding out that an hour is not very long.
Birdsong Ballet hangs here because the library is the quietest room, and this is the work that listens.
The only room with colour on the walls. Copper, a striped rug, a desk I never tidy. Somewhere along the way, many of us become busy, productive and too aware of how things are supposed to be.
The study is where I let that go. The painting reminds me how.
A kitchen to cook in, for others. The table is long on purpose. Most of what happens at Yohaku happens here, between a pan and a conversation.
The painting above the table is the last thing you see before dinner and the first thing after.
Music to listen to properly. Two horn speakers in burl walnut, a pair of turntables, cushions on the floor. There is no right way to spend your time here. Choose a record, lie down, or simply do nothing.
The painting hangs between the speakers. It is the one you hear before you see.
My atelier is part of the house too, a place of unfinished work, paint, sketches and ideas. Sometimes I will be working there, sometimes someone else may pick up a brush.
Because creativity should not belong only to those who call themselves artists.
Everyone is born creative.
Don’t let the world take it away.
What is made in the atelier goes to the list first, before it is public.
