m.simons is proud to present If it is true that I am someone I want to be a person, the first solo presentation of Bernice Nauta at the gallery. The exhibition consists of a series of paintings, sculptures and spatial gestures hinting at the former function of the gallery space as a car garage.
Throughout her practice, Nauta investigates concepts of the self and the double. She has made videoworks, installations and sculptures in which she pays hommage to the stunt double and explores split personalities, drawing on various literary resources, mythologies and scientific studies. Her own body is often the starting point; two plaster casts of her body can also be found in this space.
During her time at Sandberg, Nauta started making T-shaped paintings. In her own words they serve as the perfect compromise between a human body and a painter’s canvas. Each painting depicts an animal, person, persona or object involved in mimicry. The first part of the paintings’ titles are borrowed from the short story ‘Borges & I’ by Jorge Luis Borges. In this story, the writer explores the tension between our public persona, the image we project to the world, and our private self, the “I” which experiences the world.
Art historically, these paintings can be placed in a long lineage of shaped paintings, bringing to mind artists like Elisabeth Murray, Richard Tuttle and Frank Stella. As one of Nauta’s tutor’s once put it: “Who would want to paint rectangular forms for the rest of their lives?”.
In the following text, independent curator and writer Berber Meindertsma shares her thoughts on the T-paintings and Nauta’s practice.
The story of the bag – a reflection on Bernice Nauta’s T-paintings
by Berber Meindertsma
In “If it is true that I am someone, I want to be a person” Bernice Nauta investigates what it means to be a person through painting. Treating the frame behind the canvas as a skeleton, she transforms her canvases into characters. She gives each painting a lanky body and dresses it up. She even lets it speak—the painting’s title read like spells of self-manifestation.
You could dismiss this as mere anthropomorphism, but there's more at play here. The T-paintings are portraits of organisms and technologies engaged in mimicry. Most are highly specific—like Hatsune Miku, the personification of Vocaloid, a Japanese singing voice synthesizer marketed as a virtual idol, or Hannah Kozak, the stunt double for actress Isabella Rossellini. One painting however stands apart: the Person.
According to French thinker Roger Caillois, mimicry means a surrender of the self into space. To become another, one must unmake oneself. In the end, mimicry leads to the death of the individual. This notion explains why the painting wanting to be a Person looks like a grey, ghostly figure. It seems to be floating in the air or a white mist, holding a blue bag.
The bag brings to mind Ursula K. Le Guin’s well-known essay “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction” (1986). There, Le Guin challenges the hero-centered narratives common in Western storytelling—stories about conflict and linear progress—by proposing the carrier bag, the container, as the original and essential tool of human survival, rather than the weapon. Since 65 to 80% of food was gathered rather than hunted, the ability to carry it home was crucial, Le Guin argues. Yet it’s easier to craft a compelling story about the thrill of the hunt than about the quiet act of gathering fruits, grains, and vegetables. So we are fed stories of heroes and battles, again and again. But these stories speak only about action, not about care. They overlook the other people who move through the world—those who gather, who carry, and who keep life going.
The carrier bag holds many things—many voices, many experiences. Fiction should reflect what’s inside the bag: the messy, entangled relationships that shape our lives, making space for stories more people can recognise themselves in. Conflict may be present, but it shouldn't be the only narrative. Inside the bag, heroic figures lose grip of the pedestals they once stood upon to distinguish himself. Inside, they become just another person.
Through these T-paintings, Nauta seems to be crafting her own science fiction narratives about personhood. Each painting is a reconfiguration—a new story—drawing from the many scientific theories and sci-fi tales about the self, the double, and identity that have fascinated her since she was an art student. In her stories, anything can become someone. That is the superpower she offers to everyone.
