Nothing But Good

Saturday, 19 April 2014

Sabine Tress / Jean-Michel Basquiat

Jean-Michel Basquiat

Cadillac Moon

1981

acrylic and crayon on canvas

161,9 x 172,1 cm

I fell in love with Jean-Michel Basquiat's work when I was in art college in Paris. I saw a show at Musee Galerie de la Seita, Paris in 1993 and from then on I read everything about him that I can put my hands on. He really lived his art. He was his paintings. His immense energy but also the fact that he painted like he was driven…I still find that very inspiring. I am not trying to romanticize him. It just feels like he had things to say, that he was angry and passionate and clever and sweet. And all that can be found within his work. Last year I saw a huge show about collaborative works he did with Warhol and Clemente at Ausstellungshalle Bonn. I stood in front of his works and got drawn in again…into his universe. I also felt the freshness of his paintings. They were very much alive. I suppose what I love most about JMB´s work is that it is very personal and that it goes straight to your heart. At least it does that to me.

Sabine Tress, 2014

Sabine Tress (DU)

St Lucia

2014

oil on canvas

110 x 100 cm

www.sabinetress.de

Saturday, 12 April 2014

George Meertens / Sigmar Polke

Sigmar Polke

Untitled (Lapis-Lazuli)

1998
tempera and resin on canvas

239,5 x 199,5 cm

What is happening in this painting of Sigmar Polke? He brings together the canvas, the resin and the pigment. In doing so, he applies the pigment with the resin to the canvas. I don’t know if there was a plan in the applying. It seems to me that he applied the pigment and the resin, controlling them in the moment of the act. The picture we are now looking at seems to be the organical result of this act.

Sigmar Polke's work is influenced by alchemists and fairytale tellers, chemists and storytellers. My own work is related to medieval mystics such as Bernard of Clairvaux, Aelred of Rivaulx, William of St. Thierry, Hildegard of Bingen, St. John of the Cross. In their work I recognize an approach of understanding time and space given to humans. It is the urge to meet the unknown, the unpredictable that gets hold of my desires. My work ‘The dark night IV’ (from a series of eight paintings on paper, 65 x 50 cm, 2014) is a reference to the poem by St. John of the Cross. Entering the dark night by painting in horizontal en vertical brushstrokes I encounter an unknown experience. The dark side of being is working together with the light in bringing it together into the open. An experience that is rather pre-verbal than verbal. The image as a moment of revelation.

George Meertens, 2014

George Meertens (NL)

The dark night IV

2014

oil on paper

65 x 50 cm

www.georgemeertens.com

Sunday, 6 April 2014

David Ostrowski / Philip Guston

Philip Guston

Untitled

1969-1973

oil on panel

30,5 x 38,1 cm

David Ostrowski (DE)

F (Dann lieber nein)

2013

oil, lacquer and cotton on canvas, wood

101 x 81 cm

Philip Guston

Untitled

1969-1973

oil on panel

30,5 x 40,6 cm

David Ostrowski (DE)

F (Yes or let’s say no)

2013

lacquer, cotton and dirt on canvas, wood

241 x 191 cm

david-ostrowski.com

Monday, 24 March 2014

1. Exhibition Nothing But Good Live

Park-Platform for Visual Arts in Tilburg NL organised an exhibition based on this blog, entitled Nothing But Good Live. Reinoud van Vught and René Korten are co-curators for this artist-run exhibition space.

In the exhibition one work is shown of all the participants in the blog until March 2014. The work of the chosen predecessors is shown as a small reproduction in a timeline on the long table in the exhibition space.
The exhibition opened on Saturday March 22 2014 and ran until May 11.

Impression of the opening reception on March 22:

Design of the timeline -in three parts- presented in the centre of the exhibition:

Detail of the timeline:

Installation views of the exhition:

www.park013.nl

Monday, 17 March 2014

Jan van de Pavert / Eugène Delacroix

Eugène Delacroix

Leda and the Swan

1834

fresco

63 x 88 cm

One of a series of three made for the Abbaye de Valmont, now in Musée Delacroix in Paris

I have chosen the work of Delacroix because I think it seems uninhibited in an enjoyable way. I 'm a fan of several works by Delacroix.
In my own painting four girls are sitting around a shisha. It is a part of a big work I will make this summer. The big work will be entitled 'Freedom represented by contemporary youths hanging around and historical figures'. These four girls will be part of it and I made this work as a preliminary study.
The big work will be 4.5 x 6 meters and is meant for the great hall of Arts Centre De Appel in Amsterdam, where it will be shown in the exhibition 'When Elephants come marching in' by Mark Kremer, about psychedelia and conceptualism. In addition to the Dutch-Moroccan girls (the left I think is Turkish) there will be more young people, as well as Wally Tax, the Provos Roel van Duijn and Rob Stolk, Free Jazz musicians Pharoah Sanders and Alice Coltrane, Eugene Delacroix and William Blake, a group of feminists from around 1800, including Mary Wollstonecraft, and a few figures from the Kommune 1 in former West Berlin.
Jan van de Pavert, 2014

Jan van de Pavert (NL)

De shisha

2014

acrylic on canvas

152 x 175 cm

janvandepavert.nl

Monday, 10 March 2014

Claudia Kölgen / August Strindberg

August Strindberg

Wonderland

1894

oil on canvas

72,5 x 52cm

Nationalmuseum Stockholm

When I saw the painting Wonderland of August Strindberg I couldn't stop looking at this scene of landscape. My eyes were trying to find recognizable forms, or find some orientation. But everything seemed to flow, restless and moving – there was nothing to hold on to. In the centre the white indefinite open space of light leads into deep fog. I was touched and fascinated.
Claudia Kölgen, 2014