Aart Houtman / Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse

The Pink Studio

1911

oil on canvas

181 x 221 cm

www.wikipaintings.org/en/henri-matisse/the-pink-studio-1911#close

At the age of 14, I understood that a painting above all is a world of paint on canvas. This became clear to me after seeing the works of Matisse.
Now, over 40 years later, the same Matisse plays such an important role again. My 'Atelierschilderij (Studio Painting)' is composed of completed and unfinished paintings, old and new work, and work that I will make in 2044. Yet such a painting existed 100 years ago: 'The Pink Studio' from 1911.
 

 

Aart Houtman ( NL )
Atelierschilderij (Studio Painting)
2013
285.5 x 200 cm
[This painting has its own blog : http://studiopainting.blogspot.nl/]


My view that paintings are never alone, but rather are part of a larger context, is not shown only with my own work. A 18th-century group portrait of Cornelis Troost may just become part of a collage, combined with my group portrait of the 20th-century. That the 'edges' shown in the collage are broken, shows among other things that group portraits are created in the 16th century as well as in the 22nd century...

Aart Houtman, 2014

Aart Houtman (NL)

Atelierschilderij [Collage Soepkeuken] (Studio Painting [Soup Kitchen Collage])

2013

ca 400 x 300 cm

Museum Het Prinsenhof, Delft

[photo Aart Houtman]

oil on canvas, 71,7 x 58,5 cm (by Cornelis Troost, framed; 1723)

oil on canvas, 215 x 140 cm (1988)

photo paper on canvas on chipboard, 70 x 50 cm (2013)

acrylic, acrylic paper on prepared linen, 18 x 24 cm (2013)

acrylic on various plastic panels (2013)

acrylic on different sizes of paper (2013)

[More info about this collage:

www.prinsenhof-delft.nl/nl/wat-is-er-te-doen/tentoonstellingen/delftse-meesters-van-nu]

 

Willem Sanders / Robert Zünd

Robert Zünd
Buchenwald

1886/87

oil on linen

119 x 158,8 cm 
Kunstmuseum Luzern

On the occasion of a personal exhibition in a gallery in Luzern, Switzerland, I visited the local Museum. Not expecting much I was overthrown by a painting of the "unknown" Robert Zünd.

It was a landscape so wonderfully and masterly done that it really took time to realize it was painted. The point of view and the handling of light was overwhelming. Zünd apparently did only a few of these landscapes without people. Also the seemingly freely chosen point of view struck me.

Through time my involvement in painting comes in various forms and with various meanings.

Landscape among them.

My studio in Northern Italy, the Alta Langhe, is surrounded by woods. They provide linear cuts in a scape or frame, comparable to the calligraphic paintings of Brice Marden, which would enable me to see the landscape as an abstract form. Providing the viewer in the first instant with an ordinary painted landscape in which a closer look would tell you that the main subject is the division of space through lines and light. And detail. Close to abstraction.

An article in the catalogue on Robert Zünd gave me the title “Ideal Real Landscape or Real Ideal Landscape” for a catalogue on my landscapes produced by Peter Foolen Editions in 2012.

Willem Sanders 2013

Willem Sanders (NL/IT)

Altalanghe 12

2012

watercolour

102 x 66 cm
Courtesy Fondazione Il Fondaco, Bra, Italy

 

Willem Sanders (NL/IT)

Altalanghe 08

2011

watercolour

75,5 x 106,5 cm

Private collection, Essen, Germany
(also available as print by Bernard Ruygrok, edition 30/30)

www.willemsanders.com

Hernan Ardila Delgado / Camille Corot

Camille Corot

Recollection of Mortefontaine

1864

oil on canvas

65 x 89 cm

Here are some notes on Corot's influence on me and my understanding of art.

The necessity and cohesion of color, the acceptance of one another, a plot of gray where the color barely emerges musically damped, without ever break the atmospheric totality that makes all of his paintings a solid. 

Far from the great contrasts, he shows us a rich and vibrant pictorial surface.

The light and dark, full of chromatic nuances, takes us from light to darkness in slow and lively transitions, free of abruptness, without ever reaching the extremes, as allowing a place to infinity. 

The color slowly emerges from the gray to give us a temperature or to put us in a certain time of the day, in a season, in a state of intimacy.

Hernan Ardila, 2013

Hernan Ardila Delgado (CO/ES)

Untitled

2013

inkjet on Arches paper 100% cotton

63 x 48 cm

www.hernanardila.tumblr.com

www.facebook.com/hernan.ardiladelgado

www.hernan-ardila.com

Aquil Copier / Kazimir Malevich

 

Kazimir Malevich

The Woodcutter

1912

oil on canvas

94 x 71.5 cm

My tribute goes to the Russian painter Kazimir Malevich (Kiev, 23 februari 1878 - Leningrad, 15 mei 1935). Malevitsj/Malevich was a painter, art theoretician and pioneer in geometric abstract art and one of the premium members of the Russian avant-garde. For me he was a painter that went through different periods of image making and he was not afraid of changing his painting methods and style. His work is not meant to be a nice picture only but there is a world of theory and ideology behind and I feel related to him in both ways. In Facebook terms I would say: I LIKE!

Aquil Copier, 2013

Aquil Copier (NL)

No Title

2013

oil and spraypaint on canvas

80 x 60 cm

www.aquilcopier.nl

Bart Slangen / Léon Spilliaert

Léon Spilliaert

Dike and Beach 

1907

Indian ink, wash and colored pencil on paper

49,4 x 63,9 cm

I've been a great admirer of the dark, melancholic work of Léon Spilliaert (1881-1946) since a very long time. The selected work 'Dike and Beach' is a drawing on paper, ink washed. In addition, a fairly recent work by myself 'Diamond Beach', oil on canvas.
Always the same, always different.

Bart Slangen, 2013

Bart Slangen (BE)

Diamond Beach 

2013

oil on canvas

80 x 80 cm  

www.bartslangen.be

Cecilia Vissers / Walter de Maria

Walter de Maria

The Broken Kilometer

1979

500 brass rods

each rod 200 x 5 cm

Photo: John Abbott
 Courtesy Dia Art Foundation

Two years ago I visited The Broken Kilometer (1979) in New York at 393 West Broadway. Walter de Maria, American sculptor, arranged five hundred highly polished, pure brass rods, according to precise calculations. The total weight of his installation is 18 ¾ tons. To me this is a unique place of solitude and silence, well hidden among endless parades of stores. I like it when art reduces the speed of daily life, a place for contemplation. This is a permanent installation; here some of the most expensive commercial real estate was held aside for a unique experience of art.

Cecilia Vissers, 2013

 

 

Cecilia Vissers (NL)

A moment in time

2012

anodized aluminium

two-part, each part 95 x 23 x 1,2 cm

Photo: Peter Cox, Eindhoven

www.ceciliavissers.nl

Hans de Bruijn / Mark Rothko

 

Mark Rothko
Four Darks in Red

1958

oil on canvas

259 × 295 cm

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York


Hans de Bruijn recognises the romantic artist’s attitude - painterly recreating a sublime perception in the paintings of Mark Rothko (1903-1970). He assigns a deep methaphysical dimension in his paintings by his very specific use of paint and color.
De Bruijn paints him after a photograph of the artist in his studio. Rothko’s monochrome composition is translated into air, water and beach. By the version from Hans de Bruijn, “Black on off-white and black and brownish grey” we see the dark figure of the artist trois quart from behind, as it where in conversation with space, and follow the direction in which he is looking. This image does make use of the “C.D. Friedrich effect”, leading the spectator into space of thick paint of subdued color clouds - melancholic contemplation.
Jetteke Bolten-Rempt, 2011

Hans de Bruijn (NL)
Black on off-white and black and brownish grey
2008

oil on canvas

200 x 150 cm

www.hansdebruijn.com