The series of Dutch Paintings consists of three installations that are built with wooden stretchers
supported by painter’s easels. The installations playfully allude to various historic traditions in Dutch painting that the country has become known for, while nodding to the notion of painting as a window on the world: the work shows an accumulation of illusions that are not fulfilled, as one can literally see straight through them. The first of the installations shows signs of the constructive elements connected with the artistic traditions of the early twentieth century. Here, Boezem emphasizes formal elements such as composition and colour by painting the panels in the primary colours practiced by Mondriaan, Van Doesburg and Rietveld. The wooden stretchers of the second installation are stuffed with pillows, a humoristic hint at the famous clouds depicted in Dutch painting of the Golden Age. The third of the installations is left blank, only showing the empty wooden stretchers without making a direct connection to traditional painting. Meanwhile, each of the installations is provided with a small copper plate, inscribed with the words Dutch Painting 1, Dutch Painting 2 and Dutch Painting 3. This provides the works with a sense of legitimacy while again referring to historic traditions. With the series of Dutch Paintings, Boezem forces the viewer to make a constant examination of art’s traditional tools. The stretchers that are normally hidden from sight and allow the canvas to become a picture exhibited on a wall, now become the physical object around which the viewer can move and look through. Furthermore, by shifting the function of the stretcher, he offers thoughts about the boundaries between painting and sculpture, about redefining them, and a re-evaluation of the heredity of traditional Western painting.