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Manuela Klerkx
A storyteller, a rooster and more...
For this collection, I limit myself to four subjects that are prominently present on the canvas: a gnome, a frog, a storyteller, and a rooster. However, it's not about the different subjects themselves but what they represent. That's what makes art so exciting: it's always about more than what you see. And that leads to questions such as: why does the rooster look so stern? Why is the gnome hitchhiking? What is the frog doing on a mushroom? Who is that mysterious storyteller? In this article, I attempt to interpret the paintings by shedding light on the artist, without taking away the mystery that art entails...
0 Media items ᛫ 8 Available artworks
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The paintings of Belgian artist Geert Marijnissen (1993) may refer to a naive and childlike visual language, but the result is by no means either. Although he doesn't flaunt it, Marijnissen knows his classics all too well. Whereas a child paints without (prior) knowledge, trusting his or her own intuition, Marijnissen paints like a child with (prior) knowledge. It doesn’t get any harder than that. After all, knowledge and curiosity influence our spontaneity and intuition at the expense of artistic freedom. Marijnissen knows how to solve this dilemma, namely by pairing reason and total freedom and creating his own logic in the process. He relates to both the world of the conscious and unconscious. His humorous and nihilistic (cheesy) tropes raise philosophical questions to which the viewer finds no answers. On the contrary, thick layers of paint alongside frivolous, subtle drawings, provocative and enigmatic statements and the occasional contradictory symbolism mislead the viewer. Although his paintings seem to come about spontaneously, we cannot escape the fact that they consist of more layers than appear at first sight. By endlessly adding and subtracting, his paintings evoke a sense of age, of maturity. A hitchhiking gnome painted by Marijnissen is irresistible at first sight and you would love nothing more than to give him a lift. Yet, like the painter, we know that there are no gnomes and certainly no fairy tale forests – only in his painted universe where guilt and innocence meet.
Represented by Waldburger Wouters
Represented by Waldburger Wouters
1 Media items ᛫ 13 Available artworks
12 Shows ᛫ 0 Highlights ᛫ 0 Recommendations
The question of the how, what and why of a painting is what drives the enterprising artistic duo Flexboy & L.A. (1995). Not so much the theme or technique of painting, but rather discovering how painting works, how it can be combined with elements from high & low culture. Nothing is 'sacred' for this duo, certainly not the art world itself. Their anarchist attitude in combination with their 'sloppy' aesthetics leads to a highly unique approach to painting. They paint on both a wooden board and a pizza box. In The Art Couch, Mieke Janssens commented, “Flexboy & L.A. work in a packed studio that fits seamlessly with their overwhelming and sometimes cartoonish aesthetic, which reinforces their message. The duo is a diamond still in the rough, which hopefully will remain mostly rough, so it can keep cutting. While many artists lack a good touch of rock 'n' roll, they’ve got plenty of it. Their work makes everyone smile, frown and think, and gives us lots of self-relativity without becoming irrelevant.” In a 2005 interview with New York Magazine, American artist Richard Prince (1949), who became known in 1980 for magazines and printed images from advertising brochures with the Marlboro man, summarised his career as follows: “It's about walking around the studio and bumping into things.” That could just as easily be a quote from Flexboy & L.A. Like Prince, as their art offers a window to the world and is essential for observing and registering what is happening around them. Another resemblance to Prince is the disruptive humour that is so refreshing in today's art world.
Represented by BARBÉ
Represented by BARBÉ
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Zachariah Armstrong's (U.S., 1984) vibrant oil and encaustic* rooster portraits stare at you with their piercing eyes, as if they were statesmen in a 17th-century Dutch portraiture. The stern-looking roosters not only confront the viewer personally, but are also rich in cultural-historical symbolism. For centuries, the rooster has been a symbol of resurrection, insolence, excessive desire, and self-confidence/overestimation in different cultures and times (probably where the similarity between rooster behavior and macho behavior comes from).
Back in Roman times, the rooster was placed on church towers to drive away demons of the night and herald a new day. And we’re all familiar with the story about the apostle Peter betraying Jesus if the rooster – symbol of overconfidence – crowed three times. In China, on the other hand, the rooster, the tenth sign of the Chinese zodiac, is considered a protector against fire.
Armstrong hails from the Midwest, and in his work, this stately animal, with its fleshy, fiery red 'crown' and silky plumage, is depicted in detail and picturesquely by the artist in the form of brightly colored wax cubes. This is not only for its cultural-historical symbolism but especially out of Armstrong’s love for Americana: an umbrella term for various musical styles – from authentic country and folk music to the blues – in which the honesty and purity of American rural life – with its breeding farms and county fairs – is praised.
After years of collecting images of roosters, Armstrong decided to construct his own rooster and incorporate everything that the animal stands for into it, both literally and figuratively. Because whether we are in a studio or in a gallery, at a state banquet or at a fair, the watchful and comb.
* A painting technique in which pigments are mixed with hot beeswax, resin and other ingredients and in different colours
Represented by GNYP Gallery
Back in Roman times, the rooster was placed on church towers to drive away demons of the night and herald a new day. And we’re all familiar with the story about the apostle Peter betraying Jesus if the rooster – symbol of overconfidence – crowed three times. In China, on the other hand, the rooster, the tenth sign of the Chinese zodiac, is considered a protector against fire.
Armstrong hails from the Midwest, and in his work, this stately animal, with its fleshy, fiery red 'crown' and silky plumage, is depicted in detail and picturesquely by the artist in the form of brightly colored wax cubes. This is not only for its cultural-historical symbolism but especially out of Armstrong’s love for Americana: an umbrella term for various musical styles – from authentic country and folk music to the blues – in which the honesty and purity of American rural life – with its breeding farms and county fairs – is praised.
After years of collecting images of roosters, Armstrong decided to construct his own rooster and incorporate everything that the animal stands for into it, both literally and figuratively. Because whether we are in a studio or in a gallery, at a state banquet or at a fair, the watchful and comb.
* A painting technique in which pigments are mixed with hot beeswax, resin and other ingredients and in different colours
Represented by GNYP Gallery