In astrology elements such as water, earth, fire and air, are used to describe someone’s personality. Many ancient cultures were also familiar with the four elements. They used the terms to explain complex and dynamic processes in nature, to grasp them in more elementary terms, as simpler comprehensible substances. 

Nowadays, if one thinks about elements, the periodic table is the first thing that pops up in our mind; it lists more than one hundred substances that are the primary constituents of matter. Each one defined and distinguished from the other by its atomic number. 
Elements can also refer to the weather, especially bad weather as “fighting against the elements”. Or refer to the heater as a part of an electric teapot. 
 
For this Perennial Art exhibition at Kunsthalle Hilsbach, curators B.C. Epker and Witte Wartena brought together eight international artists, all in a different stage of their career. They all come from a different cultural background and speak different languages. All use elementary (essential and characteristic) visual elements to build up their images. While one artist is using more personal or autobiographic elements, the other is using more formal or abstract; sometimes in a straightforward and spontaneous way, and other times more deductive or experimental.

No matter from which angle, the artist is always focusing on what is essential and whether the elements in the artwork work.