02 june 2023, Flor Linckens
Galerie van den Berge: a feast of colour and the beauty of unnoticed details
Until 11 June, Galerie van den Berge in Goes is showing an exhibition with work by Ditty Ketting, Martha Scheeren and Shawn Stipling. Upon entering the gallery, the explosion of colour hits you in an almost physical way. Large and small areas of colour, both contrasting and complementary, fight for your eyes' attention. These aren't soft brushstrokes in earth tones or impressionistic landscapes. Rather, it's is a powerful statement: a celebration of form, colour and visual tension.
The work of Martha Scheeren and Ditty Ketting conveys exciting colour combinations. Bright, often contrasting colours are used side by side to create striking visual effects. The paintings are a lively labyrinth of geometric lines and surfaces, harmonious in their interplay of colour and form. Their work is also a study of light and shadow, of transparency and opacity. Some surfaces are so bright they almost appear to glow, while others are deep and opaque. This mix of colour intensities and transparency levels imbues the works with a multidimensional quality.
The paintings by Scheeren and Ketting tempt you to get closer, to discover the subtle nuances in each colour block, to explore the precise way in which the colours have been chosen and matched. The contrast of the colours — from bright fuchsia to heavenly blue, from vibrant yellow to fresh green — creates a visual tension that invites the viewer to view the artwork from various angles. In the exhibition, we see a dialogue between colours. They collide, they reinforce, they push and pull. A visual symphony, with colour as the notes and geometric shapes as the rhythms. These artists invite you to view the world through a colorful prism.
In addition to explosive colours, this exhibition also offers a refreshing counterpart to the work of Shawn Stipling: an artist that celebrates the beauty in the subtle, the unnoticed. His work focuses on non-functional details in man-made objects and our built environment. These are apparently superfluous elements that can nevertheless transform an everyday object into something of value. His work is made up of a multitude of thin layers, so there are no discernible brush marks.
