Niko de Wit / Carel Visser

 

Carel Visser

Gevouwen toren

1972

sheet steel

75 x 100 x 100 cm

 

 

When observing Carel Visser's sculptures, you can often experience how his sculptures are constructed. A closer look reveals how you can become part of the folding of plates to then stack them. The four folded plates each have their own character and dimension derived from their place, size and weight in relation to each other. The elements have a great cohesion within a surprisingly clear composition. In this sculpture you can recognize Visser's fascination with the Mexican pyramids.

My sculpture consists of five massive blocks stacked along two sides. The stacking of the blocks stands in a dangerous balance. A sixth block would collapse the stack. Defying gravity is an important motif for me when creating my sculptures.

For the development of my work, Carel Visser's oeuvre has proven to be very inspiring. 

 

Niko de Wit, 2024

Niko de Wit (NL)

Stapeling omlaag

1975-1976

cast iron

31,5 x 17 x 11,8 cm

nikodewit.nl

Frank van Hemert / Van Gogh-Basquiat-Bacon

 

PSYCHIC PORTRAITS
When I paint a portrait, my only motivation is to understand the essence of that person and to tell his or her story in colour. Because colour is able to be more precise than words.

Frank van Hemert, 2024

Frank van Hemert

Vincent van Gogh

2023

oil on linen

165,5 x 134,5 cm

photo Gert Jan van Rooij

Vincent van Gogh

Frank van Hemert

Francis Bacon

2023

oil on linen

165,5 x 134,5 cm

photo Gert Jan van Rooij

Francis Bacon

Frank van Hemert

Jean-Michel Basquiat

2023

oil on linen

160 x 130 cm

photo Gert Jan van Rooij

Jean-Michel Basquiat

 

 

 

Frank van Hemert (NL)

www.frankvanhemert.com

Sabina Timmermans / Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh 

Garden of the Asylum

1889

oil on canvas

72 x 91cm

image: Van Gogh Museum

Vincent van Gogh 

Tree Roots

1890

oil on canvas

50,3 x 100,1 cm

image: Van Gogh Museum

Van Gogh’s final painting Tree Roots, served as the inspiration for a series of charcoal drawings I worked on for a year, called Caressing and Colliding - Sharing the Land.  The location where Van Gogh likely encountered these roots and trunks was discovered the year before my residency at the Vincent van GoghHuis in Zundert in 2021. They were situated on a slope alongside a small street in Auvers-sur-Oise. According to a dendrologist, these roots and trunks were from coppiced trees, a form of forestry where new growth is repeatedly cut back for use. Some argue that Van Gogh expresses the struggle of life and death with this. 

 

My aim for the residency was to connect his final painting and the place of his death, with the place where Van Gogh's life began, Zundert. While exploring the forests around the Vlaamse Schuur where I stayed, I looked for similar shapes symbolizing the struggle for life and death. Initially, I searched for the coppiced trees I knew were there, but I became increasingly intrigued by the numerous surface tree roots from old beech trees. In my drawings, I envisioned them as bodies shaped by their life-long interaction and entanglement with their surroundings; with soil, wind, water, humans and other organisms. 

 

I gained a deeper understanding of how Van Gogh perceived nature, due to this residency. With new interest, I revisited his letters and his paintings depicting nature. I was captivated by how Van Gogh's trees transcend mere imagery, seeming to spring to life, imbued with a soul,  as if they are speaking to you. It’s only since then that I read in his paintings the profound connection Van Gogh felt with nature, how he felt at one with it. I strongly resonate with this sensation, and it serves as a significant inspiration for my own artistic practice.

 

Sabina Timmermans, 2024

Sabina Timmermans

Caressing and Colliding - Sharing the Land (12) 

2022

charcoal on paper

140 x 200 cm

image: Peter Cox

Sabina Timmermans (NL)

Roots (3)

2024

charcoal on paper

110 x 141,5 cm

sabinatimmermans.nl

 

Romain Van Wissen / Sigmar Polke

Sigmar Polke

Baumhaus 

1976

Romain Van Wissen

Descendu ici pour les vacances

2018 

122 x 100 cm

acrylic on canvas

Romain Van Wissen (BE)

Se remettre d'aplomb

2018

122 x 104 cm

acrylic on canvas

http://romainvanwissen.com

Toon Berghahn / Pieter Jansz. Saenredam

 

Pieter Jansz. Saenredam

Interieur van de Sint-Odulphuskerk in Assendelft

1649

oilpaint on panel

49,6 × 75 cm

Pieter Jansz. Saenredam

Het oude stadhuis in Amsterdam

1657

oilpaint on panel

65,5 × 84,5 cm 

 

 

When I was at the Rietveld Academy I wanted to become Jackson Pollock, or Willem de Kooning. Abstract, virtuoso and expressive. That way of painting also had many similarities with the guitar music of Jimi Hendrix, another childhood hero of mine. Later I discovered that abstract art was not for me. I started painting reality and worked more cerebral. I became fascinated by art from the Middle Ages, but also by Saenredam, a great master from the 17th century. His interior paintings are created by observing endlessly. The drawings he made while visiting a building were sometimes only converted into paintings decades later. Only then did he also apply modification, for the benefit of the composition or other qualities of the final image. 

That's how he mainly painted in his head and I recognize that well, although he was of course a much greater artist than I will ever be. The calm and tranquility in his painted spaces is beautiful, it is overwhelmingly quiet. The light often radiates from behind, as if the painting itself illuminates the actual space where you are as a viewer.

 

Toon Berghahn, 2024

Toon Berghahn

Jacobs ladder

2024

mixed media on wood 

104 x 62 cm 

Toon Berghahn (NL)

Kosmos

2023

mixed media on wood

122 x 139 cm

www.toonberghahn.nl

Ema Vaneková / Pierre Bonnard

 

Pierre Bonnard 

On the track

1895

oilpaint on panel

42,3 x 27,5 cm

Pierre Bonnard

The Bath

1925

oilpaint on canvas

86 x 120,6 cm

 

 

The paintings of Pierre Bonnard often feel timeless for me; showing human life and love has always been the same. 

Painted with bold strokes and emotionally lively colors the paintings give a feeling of childlike appreciation and at the same time a strange lifelessness.

 

Ema Vaneková, 2024

Ema Vaneková

Spolu Zima

2024

oilpaint on linen

40 x 60 cm

Ema Vaneková (SK/NL)

Laska v Postele

2024

oilpaint on linen

140 x 70 cm

www.ema-vanekova.com

Michael Weißköppel / Michel Majerus

 

Michel Majerus 

10 bears masturbating in 10 boxes

1992

295,3 x 560,6 cm

acrylic on canvas

Michel Majerus

lost forever

1992

280 x 400 cm

acrylic on canvas

 

 

Majerus like

Not the worst comparison I thought when I read the comment under one of my Instagram posts. Majerus has a lot that drives me to make paintings. His curiosity towards the environments and his enthusiasm to be aware of changes in the world that directly flooded into his art. By applying various techniques and mixing different influences he developed a signature style with different characteristics where none is taking precedence over the other. In his paintings, an expressive brushwork has the same value as a comic character, there is no high and low. 

He didn‘t accept boundaries, his work is catchy and he was in the here and now... but even as I write this, I‘m wondering whether exactly the opposite might be desirable sometimes. Majerus works appear as if they are entirely dedicated to postpop, the aesthetics of advertising, video games and consumerism. And it can be seen as if he just celebrated this flat aesthetics and built them a memorial. Or not? “What looks good today may not look good tomorrow,” one of his paintings shows him as a doubter. His works, which appear so self-confident, are perhaps a criticism of consumption and our enthusiasm for media. 

Often the work seems to be unfinished, parts are overpainted and the surface is kind of damaged. Scratches on the glossy world of the computer screen. Doubt and Enthusiasm? Is there only black and white? Or is there a wide variety of shades of grey? Maybe he simply quoted and painted things that excited him without evaluating them in advance. 

I feel very close to him, painting what interests me, what excites me and what I simply want to paint. And it shouldn‘t matter whether this already exists, whether someone else has already done it or whether someone says that you shouldn‘t paint it.

 

Michael Weißköppel, 2023

Michael Weißköppel

Didn't

2023

120 x 170 cm

acrylic and acrylic spray paint on canvas

Michael Weißköppel

Mirrors

2023

160 x 240 cm

acrylic and acrylic spray paint on canvas

Michael Weißköppel (DE)

GOO

2022

160 x 240 cm

acrylic and acrylic spray paint on canvas

www.weisskoeppel.com