John Beech / Antoni Tàpies

Antoni Tàpies

White Canvas with Sewn Cardboard

1963

assemblage on canvas

100 x 100 cm (39.375 x 39.375 inches)

private collection, Barcelona

photographed from 'The Complete Works, Volume 2', compiled by Anna Agusti

Antoni Tàpies

Signs over White Ovals

1966

mixed media on wood

196 x 260 cm (77.25 x 102.375 inches)

collection Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany

photographed from 'The Complete Works, Volume 2', compiled by Anna Agusti

I first encountered the art of Antoni Tàpies in 1983, while an art student in Berkeley, California.

I felt an inexplicable sense of proximity to the beautiful language that deemed Tàpies's works somehow inevitable.

Since that time, although my own art has a closer tie to industrial materials than the earthen matter of Tàpies, I have often wished for it to share the quality of suspended stillness that his great works exude.

John Beech, Brooklyn NY, July 2019

John Beech

Panel Painting #2

2019

oil enamel, hollow-core acrylic sheet, screws

201,6 x 97 x 1,6 cm (79.375 x 38.875 x 0.625 inches)

John Beech (US)

Repaired Sheet #3

2016

oil enamel, plywood, steel mending plates, screws

225,7 x 210,8 x 2,2 cm (88.875 x 83 x 0.875 inches)

www.johnbeech.com

Danielle van Broekhoven / Per Kirkeby

Per Kirkeby

Leiser Wellenschlag Grun (Lapping of waves, green)

2005

oil on linen

200 x 300 cm 

I saw the large paintings of Per Kirkeby for the first time in 2009 at the Louisiana Museum in Humlebaek near Copenhagen. This first acquaintance with the museum may have contributed to the feeling I had with the paintings of Kirkeby. I think this is such a fantastic museum in many ways. I read the following description somewhere on the internet (by Bent van Looy, the frontman of Das Pop): "Lousiana is one of my favorite places on earth. Everything is right there. The architecture is inventive and progressive, but at the same time modest and discrete. The building is large and yet on a human scale. It is in no way intended to amaze or impress. Very Danish, actually. Danes are the masters of discretion". I could not put it better!

The large exhibition I saw there at that time in 2009, with gigantic paintings by this Danish painter Per Kirkeby, fascinated me enormously, but also raised many questions for me.

Why do I find this so good, is it intuitive or very thoughtful, why does he paint what he paints? What do I look at and why do I keep looking? It is abstract but not entirely abstract .... I feel nature in his works, but I don't really see it ....

Are these paintings tough and bold? Or seriously? One feeling prevailed, I really felt like painting. And that is usually a good indicator.

His use of color is beautiful! The struggle I felt when I first saw his works, but at the same time the fascination for it and the primal force, are aspects that I also feel when I paint.

Per Kirkeby himself calls his painting old-fashioned. He perceives nature as it presents itself and then brushes it in the way perceptions come to him. Only in this way can the truth be brought to light. That makes his paintings no less enigmatic. They are difficult to read. "I am not a gardener. Just an observer. Nature is what she is."

Danielle van Broekhoven, 2019

Danielle van Broekhoven (NL)

Burst of Nature

2019

oil and acrylic on linen

180 x 120 cm 

www.daniellevanbroekhoven.com