Willem Claesz Heda
Still Life with a Fruit Pie
1644
oil on panel
80,6 x 101,5 cm
There isn’t a particular artwork that is my favourite. In my paintings (but also in my spatial work, collages, videos, etc.), there are many demonstrable interfaces with works of art from the past. All with different reasons: through the subject, the way of painting, the composition, the concept of space or colour. Some of my works are direct references to works by Pablo Picasso or by Vincent van Gogh. But the majority of my inspiration comes from Dutch baroque paintings, with painters such as Pieter de Hooch, Johannes Vermeer, Gabriel Metsu, Willem Claesz Heda, Rembrandt, and others.
One of the subjects that interest me in the paintings of the Dutch Baroque Period is the fact that objects, as well as persons, are isolated in the whole. Nothing is present for decorative reasons, but has a function in the image. In addition, especially with Johannes Vermeer, light is very important. Unlike Rembrandt van Rijn, who depicted light as a material, Johannes Vermeer paints a spiritual light. The light is energy between the objects.
The images of these historical paintings mix with the visual language and views of the contemporary. Social topics in the country where I am resident (Argentina), in South America or from the world in general mix with the Dutch tradition in painting. An example of this juxtaposition was my exhibition Vanitas (2022) in the National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires in Argentina, where the vanitas /still life subject was drawn towards the contemporary. Garbage -with it’s sculptural value- is a subject that can be found in many of my paintings and photographs over the years, either as a theme in it self, as an installation or as part of a painting. Garbage has direct interfaces with the vanitas theme. In particular, it clearly reflects the anthropogenic era in which we now find ourselves.
The exhibition showed my artworks made in different decades about the subject, in combination with paintings from different centuries from the collection of the museum (Jan Fyt, Diego Rivera, Georges Braque amongst others). It was centred on an installation with five paintings that form a huge still life of garbage. A landscape of garbage as it appears in the street. Painted as an image of a hospital MRI-scan: representing an analysis of society.
Rob Verf, 2022
Rob Verf
MRI-Scan Of Society
2014
acrylic on canvas
140 x 210 cm
(collection Bank Of The Nation, Argentina)
Rob Verf
MRI-Scan Of Society
2018
acrylic on canvas
140 x 1020 cm
(Installation at the National Museum Of Fine Arts, Buenos Aires, Argentina, 2022)
Rob Verf (NL/AR)
MRI-Scan OF Society
2018
acrylic on canvas
140 x 200 cm
(One of the 5 paintings that form the installation)
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