Nothing But Good

Saturday, 10 June 2023

Pietertje van Splunter / Edvard Munch

Edvard Munch

House with Red Virginia Creeper

1898-1900

oil on canvas

119,5 x 121 cm

Munch Museum, Oslo

The artist I want to highlight for Nothing But Good is Munch.

As a young painter, I did not like Munch. Much of his work I found pathetic, uncomfortable, weird compositions, limp shapes and skimpy brushwork. But during a visit to Oslo, I suddenly found myself in front of the 1900 painting "House with Red Virginia Creeper" at the Munch Museum. It looks like a simple depiction of a red house, a tree, a man. The painting is almost square, the composition felt uncomfortable. The man in the foreground has only his head in the picture, the tree almost seems to grow out of his head, the perspective is strange, all the elements seem pasted together. The painting fascinated and the apparent mess annoyed me. I decided to 'improve' the painting. I re-painted it a total of 18 times in different ways where, of course, I soon realised that this painting cannot be improved. It is precisely that weird composition, everything painted just a little crooked and 'dickish' that makes this painting so good.

Later I found out that Munch also painted this same house with roughly the same composition three times, earlier versions hang in the National Museum and in a private collection. He also clearly struggled with the composition. The final version in the Munch Museum is the last and, as far as I am concerned, incorrigibly beautiful.

Pietertje van Splunter, 2023

Pietertje van Splunter

House with Red Creeper

2002

oil on canvas

Pietertje van Splunter

Color wheel

2021

acrylic on reclaimed wood

ø37 cm

Pietertje van Splunter

Oh that color of your eyes

2021

110 x 125 cm

acrylic on canvas

Pietertje van Splunter (NL)

Scrap 2

2023

85 x 100 cm

acrylic on canvas

www.pietertje.net

Saturday, 27 May 2023

Jan Kolata / Kurt Schwitters

Kurt Schwitters

painting in Norway

1936

When I studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in the 1970s, it was a time when painting was considered totally outdated (this happens quite regularly). I remember very well the question of a fellow student towards the end of my studies: Do you still paint? In such moments, I always remembered Kurt Schwitters in my defence, who, despite Dada and Merz, still painted en plein air every summer in Norway and also did so later in emigration in Norway (photo) and then in England, and earned his living with it. As a student I visited his grave in Ambleside in the Lake District. Later, Schwitters' remains were moved to Hannover. He was one of my artistic heroes at the time. Not only that he dared to oppose the main stream of the 1920s, 1930s – with all the consequences of emigration from Nazi Germany, but that he knew how to maintain his independence just as much in the face of the institutionalising avant-garde. This attitude won me over for him.
When I myself began to paint more intensively in the open air, a painting moped was needed for this purpose. I converted my Rixe accordingly (photo), and was thus able to roam the landscape of the Lower Rhine (flat) and the Bergisches Land (hilly) in a relaxed manner. I had integrated a picnic drawer under the compartment for the paint tubes – perfect!

It's been a long time since then. The work in the studio and thus the absence of the motif has made my painting more and more selfreferential. But you can still feel that I painted en plein air for a while. The colour in my paintings does not follow a programme, it always seems atmospheric, changeable. Sun, wind and rain are in it. Sometimes it is ephemeral, as if washed away by the rain (my connection to Edvard Munch, who let his paintings ripen in the rain – except that I use a Kärcher), then as if illuminated or punchy present. In painting, nature is no longer the object, but all the more a player and adversary in the process itself. Putting the canvas under water, letting the thin paint spread out on the canvas and find its shape - this kind of self-organisation of the painting works for me when I paint.

Is plein air painting finally finished for me today? To work outdoors, in the midst of greenery (John Constable!) - that remains a temptation that I will perhaps give in to once again.

Jan Kolata, 2023

Jan Kolata (DE)

painting on the Lower Rhine

1979

https://jankolata.de

Saturday, 13 May 2023

Rémy Hysbergue / Kupka-Marquet-Vermeer

František Kupka

Lignes animées

1920/1933

193 x 200 cm

oil on canvas

Albert Marquet

Vue sur le Pont St Michel à Paris en 1912

1912

65 x 81 cm

oil on canvas

Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe

Johannes Vermeer

Meisje met de rode hoed

1667

22,8 x 18 cm

oil on panel

National Gallery of Art, Washington

It's a desire for painting that is ultimately quite classic: a concern for composition, color and light. Playing on the different qualities of definitions: blur, sharp, hyper sharp. Enhance "unpainted empty" spaces. Find consistency in light, on velvet.
These three are among the most important inspirations for me.

Rémy Hysbergue, 2023

Rémy Hysbergue
exhibition Élégants Velours

Haus der Kunst St. Josef, Solothurn Switzerland

2023

Rémy Hysbergue

À découvert series

2022/23

200 x 155 cm

acrylic on velvet

Rémy Hysbergue (FR)

À découvert

2022/23

80 x 65 cm

acrylic on velvet

www.galerierichard.com/index.php/en/artiste/remy-hysbergue-2

Saturday, 1 April 2023

Helma Michiels / Joan Mitchell

Joan Mitchell

Merci

1992

280 x 359 cm

oil on canvas

Museum Ludwig, Cologne, 2016

It was in New York in 2013 that I first layed eyes on a work by Joan Mitchell (Chicago 1925-Paris 1992). I did not know her and it puzzled me how on earth this was possible. Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline were her friends. The painting spoke from the depth of the paint. Oops, I first wrote, from the depth of the pain. There actually is a lot of truth in that. These brushstrokes were made of flesh and blood, anger and despair, passion and paint, disguised in gorgeous colours. There is no hesitation in the brushstrokes. No wonder they knocked me out straight away. When I read her biography Joan Mitchell, Lady painter, A Life, by Patricia Albers, she became my great friend, in heaven of course, but still. A friend for life.

Like a kind of pilgrimage, I went to see the place where she had lived. On my way home from Spain, where I work during many months each year, I stopped at Vétheuil, a sleepy little town near Paris, strangled by the river Seine. A house on a hill, "La Tour", with a cemetary as the quiet neighbour. It showed me once again that you can make the greatest work anywhere. Drive and dedication are more important. You need to "keep the paint flying" as she would say. I am really grateful that she did dedicate her life to painting. We need this work that speaks for itself. I do.

In 2016, Joan made me visit Museum Ludwig in Cologne where she was honored in a great retrospective. Especially her last works, made with the last strength from her tormented body, made a huge impression. These paintings are immensely large and strong. They speak to me. Make me respond. As a painter. As a person, as a woman. I feel them. She had to prove herself all her life. Because she was a woman. Her last work Merci from 1992 moved me to tears. And I realised, with regret, that I could have known her, if only I had discovered her sooner. Being in a private collection together, is the closest I will ever get. A privilege, I must admit.

2023 Took me to Paris, where she was presented by Fondation Luis Vuitton in combination with late Monets. A daring combination, knowing that she hated to be connected to Monet. But any opportunity to see her work, is a good one.

Helma Michiels, 2023

Helma Michiels (NL)

2021

120 x 180 cm

oil on canvas

helmamichiels.nl

Saturday, 18 March 2023

Lon Godin / Barnett Newman

Barnett Newman

Who's afraid of red yellow and blue III

1967

224 x 544 cm

Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam

Lon Godin (NL/DE)

NM | Lumen | Big Horizontal II

2015

200 x 480 cm

oil on canvas

longodin.nl

Saturday, 4 March 2023

Ab van Hanegem / Karl Otto Götz

Karl Otto Götz
Toro

1964

145 x 175 cm

mixed media on canvas

Ab van Hanegem (NL/DE)

Untitled

2022

180 x 270 cm

acrylic on canvas

www.abvanhanegem.com

Saturday, 11 February 2023

Keetje Mans / Jean Brusselmans

Jean Brusselmans

Dame Au Canapé

1937

oil on canvas

150 x 150 cm

Jean Brusselmans

Marine

1930–1930

oil on canvas

86 x 100 cm

Jean Brusselmans

Les Mouettes (The Seagulls)

1930

oil on canvas

95 x 75 cm

Jean Brusselmans

Nature Morte A Leventail (Still life with Folding Fan)

1948

oil on canvas

Jean Brusselmans is a Belgian painter. What has got me transfixed to his paintings is that he uses his personal life and habitat, his village near the sea and his house and domestic environment as an inspirational base. The objects trees, birds, ocean waves, naked bathers transform through the direct brushstrokes and almost square form he uses...so it can become a world of its own...with strange proportions and earthy colors that still seem so fresh to me.

From what I've read he doesn't seem to like the art world that much and in great poverty he stays under the radar for a long time in the village where he lives and paints what he sees...

He is definitely one of the painters I like to watch, his works look very decisive and firm. Geometric and rhythmic even. But at the same time there is so much feeling in a painting of seagulls or storm at sea or his wife’s dress.

In my work my domestic life, interior and exterior move through one another and I really like to see my environment and private world as a personal base for my paintings. As a painter you try to provide your subjects with a kind of character or a soul at best and in this practice I really like to use strange proportions or brush strokes or try to reshape or use patterns.

Keetje Mans, 2023