Saturday 30 December 2017

Tinka Pittoors / Eva Hesse



Eva Hesse
Seven Poles
1970
resin and fiber-glass, polyethylene, aluminum wire
272 x 240 cm



My first thought for this blog was: Eva Hesse, I have a soft spot for her since long ago. On the Internet I found an image that hit me like a bomb, because I had adored it so much before, and now, after forgetting it for almost 10 years, I rediscovered it, or rather I felt it again. Because it's crazy how such a work has become a piece of your DNA. I had not thought about it for such a long time, but when I saw it now: WOW.
It also reminded me of a recent installation that I made for CCMechelen: Irreligionair ...

Tinka Pittoors, 2017




Tinka Pittoors (BE)
Irreligionair
2017
installation, wood, paint, carpet, epoxy, inox, ink
ca 250 x 200 x 250 cm



Saturday 16 December 2017

Bas Ketelaars / Caspar David Friedrich



Caspar David Friedrich
Der Mönch am Meer
1808-1810
oil on canvas
110 x 171,5 cm
Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin




Looking at the paintings of Caspar David Friedrich I see atmosphere and structure. The Monk by the Sea (Der Mönch am Meer 1808-1810) is probably his most radical piece of work. This painting shows an overwhelming emptiness with the weight of the whole cosmos. More than just a landscape it shows nature in its most comprehensive form. Nature and its experience by the lonely figure in the foreground, of whom I can’t really tell whether he’s a part of it or not. 

Although it’s known that Friedrich painted his images rather quick and accurate after looking a long time at the empty canvas, in this picture you can still see the traces of two small fishing boats in the horizon which were eventually painted over. With this correction he brings pure abstraction suddenly very close by.  

For myself the works of Friedrich were one of the reasons to focus on landscape drawings. The one shown here is the first of a series of drawings in large format. In this drawing there’s a lot of trial and error, several systems are visible next to each other. The only part uncorrected is the foreground which is, just like you see often in Friedrich’s paintings, clearly distinct from the background. Yet together they produce the landscape.

Bas Ketelaars, 2017




Bas Ketelaars
Untitled (searching C.D.#1)
2013
graphite on paper
150 x 170 cm
collection AMC



Sunday 3 December 2017

Ky Anderson / Kenneth Patchen



Kenneth Patchen
From the book The Walking Away World


Kenneth Patchen
From the book What Shall We Do Without Us, page 22
published 1984


Kenneth Patchen
From the book What Shall We Do Without Us, page 8
published 1984


Kenneth Patchen
From the book What Shall We Do Without Us, page 33
published 1984



Kenneth Patchen
Picture poem



Kenneth Patchen with a collection of his painted books
1957



I grew up in a family of artists so I was exposed to many types of art and artists. As a teenager I began to seek out art work that I felt moved by. My first art book purchase as a young artist, around 14 or 15 years old, was a book of painted poems titled 'What Shall We Do Without Us' by Kenneth Patchen. This was the perfect book for a teenage artist like myself. Full of passion, whimsy, playfulness while also being dead serious. The text of Patchen's poems meander through his paintings as if they are brushstrokes of color. I recognized his process of text and painting as a useful step for me to take as I worked towards abstract painting. Starting with the words and slowly removing them, letting the form, color and line become the words. His painted poems helped me to understand all that could be said with lines, form and color. 

Ky Anderson, 2017



Ky Anderson (US)
New Bridge
2017
acrylic and oil on canvas
81,3 x 76,2 cm