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Manuela Klerkx
Five perspectives on painting
"Photography has evolved to the point where it is capable of liberating painting from the literary, the anecdotal, and even from the subject itself."
Pablo Picasso
There are no longer painting movements such as De Stijl, Cobra or the Transavantgarde. Art movements disappeared after the nineties and have made way for extensive individualism. I don't know any artists who want to be classified under a 'movement' or 'trend' – unless, of course, it helps their career. After all, no artist can make it on their own. Without his brother Theo, Vincent van Gogh probably would not have become so famous – despite his unparalleled vision and skills. And without the charismatic collector and art dealer Kahnweiler (Picasso was the ‘shock of his life’), Picasso's star would not have risen so quickly. Meanwhile, galleries are the first official promoters of an artist's work and continue to search for new talents who sweep the floor with art styles and commands of earlier generations, attempting to discover new forms of painting. I have listed a number of painters here who, each in his or her own unique way, brings about a small shift in the centuries-old tradition of great painters, a courageous and complicated process in which, as Picasso writes, painting has freed itself from 'the literary, the anecdotal, and even from the subject', but what takes its place? That is still the question and is why painting remains such a challenging and timeless art form. By the way, an interesting fact: Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler was a fervent opponent of abstract painting. Could that explain why Picasso never ventured into pure abstraction? How free was he in reality? Material for a completely different article…
Pablo Picasso
There are no longer painting movements such as De Stijl, Cobra or the Transavantgarde. Art movements disappeared after the nineties and have made way for extensive individualism. I don't know any artists who want to be classified under a 'movement' or 'trend' – unless, of course, it helps their career. After all, no artist can make it on their own. Without his brother Theo, Vincent van Gogh probably would not have become so famous – despite his unparalleled vision and skills. And without the charismatic collector and art dealer Kahnweiler (Picasso was the ‘shock of his life’), Picasso's star would not have risen so quickly. Meanwhile, galleries are the first official promoters of an artist's work and continue to search for new talents who sweep the floor with art styles and commands of earlier generations, attempting to discover new forms of painting. I have listed a number of painters here who, each in his or her own unique way, brings about a small shift in the centuries-old tradition of great painters, a courageous and complicated process in which, as Picasso writes, painting has freed itself from 'the literary, the anecdotal, and even from the subject', but what takes its place? That is still the question and is why painting remains such a challenging and timeless art form. By the way, an interesting fact: Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler was a fervent opponent of abstract painting. Could that explain why Picasso never ventured into pure abstraction? How free was he in reality? Material for a completely different article…
Yiyi Chen
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5 Shows ᛫ 0 Highlights ᛫ 0 Recommendations
Yiyi Chen
Yiyi Chen (China, 1989) considers herself an observer and on the website of the Rietveld Academy, from which she graduated in 2020, she writes: 'Once in a while, I am an outsider of life'. And if you look closely at her work, you understand exactly what she means by that. Yiyi is a painter who observes, records and then captures people and things from our daily lives on canvas or paper. Spontaneous moments, quiet spaces, everyday scenes, objects or human figures are viewed with a philosophical eye, as if she senses who or what wants to be 'seen' or wants to remain veiled. The paintings sometimes seem incomplete or even somewhat abstract, but they reflect how 'something' or 'someone' is seen and felt by her. A 'vague, colourless portrait' is temporarily visible as a 'colourful bouquet of flowers' and may reveal more.
Josilda da Conceição Gallery
Yiyi Chen (China, 1989) considers herself an observer and on the website of the Rietveld Academy, from which she graduated in 2020, she writes: 'Once in a while, I am an outsider of life'. And if you look closely at her work, you understand exactly what she means by that. Yiyi is a painter who observes, records and then captures people and things from our daily lives on canvas or paper. Spontaneous moments, quiet spaces, everyday scenes, objects or human figures are viewed with a philosophical eye, as if she senses who or what wants to be 'seen' or wants to remain veiled. The paintings sometimes seem incomplete or even somewhat abstract, but they reflect how 'something' or 'someone' is seen and felt by her. A 'vague, colourless portrait' is temporarily visible as a 'colourful bouquet of flowers' and may reveal more.
Josilda da Conceição Gallery
0 Media items ᛫ 6 Available artworks
0 Shows ᛫ 0 Highlights ᛫ 0 Recommendations
Ted Green
Music is a temporal art, with audible sounds, tones, melodies and/or inaudible silences and pauses that coincide with or succeed each other. How do you visualise something like that? Ted Green (California, USA, 1963) comes close to creating a painting as if he were composing a soundless and timeless piece of music. Like a melody, the undulating line determines the composition, while colour and visual elements accompany the 'melody' and evoke a certain feeling. The repetition of the same pattern is typical how he organically combines line and colour, movement and stillness. Green studied biology before switching to fine art at the University of California and obtained a Master's degree in painting under Markus Lüpertz at the Art Academy in Dusseldorf. Green is also a co-founder of Plan. d., Produzentengalerie, a leading artist-run gallery in Dusseldorf, where he lives and works.
EVA STEYNEN GALLERY
Music is a temporal art, with audible sounds, tones, melodies and/or inaudible silences and pauses that coincide with or succeed each other. How do you visualise something like that? Ted Green (California, USA, 1963) comes close to creating a painting as if he were composing a soundless and timeless piece of music. Like a melody, the undulating line determines the composition, while colour and visual elements accompany the 'melody' and evoke a certain feeling. The repetition of the same pattern is typical how he organically combines line and colour, movement and stillness. Green studied biology before switching to fine art at the University of California and obtained a Master's degree in painting under Markus Lüpertz at the Art Academy in Dusseldorf. Green is also a co-founder of Plan. d., Produzentengalerie, a leading artist-run gallery in Dusseldorf, where he lives and works.
EVA STEYNEN GALLERY
0 Media items ᛫ 6 Available artworks
2 Shows ᛫ 0 Highlights ᛫ 0 Recommendations
Ethel Coppieters
Ethel Coppieters (1996, Brussels) earned her Master's degree in painting in 2021. Her stylised portraits of energetic, voluptuous and powerful women seemingly combine the intimate and the universal, past and present. The women, whose physical proportions she deconstructs in her own graphic and abstract way, appear to be liberated from the known and restrictive beauty ideals to which generations of women were – and still are – expected to adhere. They wear socks and high heels, black leather gloves and cowboy boots, and exhibit a great degree of independence, individually or collectively. She translates concepts such as sisterhood, the complexity of female (contradictory) feelings and experiences and the female (lonely) presence in a living room, on a bath towel or in a gym in a subdued, enigmatic way onto the canvas. Coppieters' paintings show parallels with her – also graphic – murals that she creates under the name Soaz. Inspired by women of her generation in an everyday setting, she creates film-like scenes of topless women with swirling hair in sports shorts or women who, seated in sensual poses, seem to be very pleased with themselves. Coppieters draws from classical painting and adds contemporary, narrative elements from the fashion and sports world.
Valerius Gallery
Ethel Coppieters (1996, Brussels) earned her Master's degree in painting in 2021. Her stylised portraits of energetic, voluptuous and powerful women seemingly combine the intimate and the universal, past and present. The women, whose physical proportions she deconstructs in her own graphic and abstract way, appear to be liberated from the known and restrictive beauty ideals to which generations of women were – and still are – expected to adhere. They wear socks and high heels, black leather gloves and cowboy boots, and exhibit a great degree of independence, individually or collectively. She translates concepts such as sisterhood, the complexity of female (contradictory) feelings and experiences and the female (lonely) presence in a living room, on a bath towel or in a gym in a subdued, enigmatic way onto the canvas. Coppieters' paintings show parallels with her – also graphic – murals that she creates under the name Soaz. Inspired by women of her generation in an everyday setting, she creates film-like scenes of topless women with swirling hair in sports shorts or women who, seated in sensual poses, seem to be very pleased with themselves. Coppieters draws from classical painting and adds contemporary, narrative elements from the fashion and sports world.
Valerius Gallery
0 Media items ᛫ 8 Available artworks
7 Shows ᛫ 0 Highlights ᛫ 0 Recommendations
Hans Schuttenbeld
Hans Schuttenbeld (1991, Rotterdam) paints compositions of calligraphic lines that generate optical illusions through the repetitive manner in which they are applied. The use of color strengthens the suggestion of depth. The process usually begins with a series of digital manipulations of his abstract calligraphic drawings. The black-and-white line games are scanned, loaded into Photoshop, coloured and then twisted into a new composition. To enhance the suggestion of form and depth, Schuttenbeld 'paints' darker and lighter parts. His psychedelic compositions arise from a combination of human imagination, technique and digital manipulation. Meanwhile, the artist aims to create these compositions manually as well, as a procedural part of the relationship between creator – technique/material – and result. How can a technique – under the influence of an idea from the creator – be manipulated or controlled in such a way that it produces surprising creations? This question continues to challenge him as a creator, as does the question of how to bring digital aesthetics into an analogue world.
Galerie Roger Katwijk
Hans Schuttenbeld (1991, Rotterdam) paints compositions of calligraphic lines that generate optical illusions through the repetitive manner in which they are applied. The use of color strengthens the suggestion of depth. The process usually begins with a series of digital manipulations of his abstract calligraphic drawings. The black-and-white line games are scanned, loaded into Photoshop, coloured and then twisted into a new composition. To enhance the suggestion of form and depth, Schuttenbeld 'paints' darker and lighter parts. His psychedelic compositions arise from a combination of human imagination, technique and digital manipulation. Meanwhile, the artist aims to create these compositions manually as well, as a procedural part of the relationship between creator – technique/material – and result. How can a technique – under the influence of an idea from the creator – be manipulated or controlled in such a way that it produces surprising creations? This question continues to challenge him as a creator, as does the question of how to bring digital aesthetics into an analogue world.
Galerie Roger Katwijk
0 Media items ᛫ 7 Available artworks
2 Shows ᛫ 0 Highlights ᛫ 0 Recommendations
James Aldridge
James Aldridge (1971, Kent, UK) lives with his family in the forests of Småland in Sweden. He enjoys listening to black metal music because of the dark, mystical symbolism hidden within it, can spend hours watching birds and considers art a way to explore the boundaries of the human psyche, the cosmos and the living nature on intellectual, emotional, artistic and spiritual levels. Aldridge's paintings testify to an illusory universe in which animals, flowers, plants, decorative, new-age elements and abstract forms coexist. It quickly becomes clear that we are not so much looking at a fantasised wilderness, but rather witnessing a psychological space in which fantasy and reality, reason and imagination, dark and light, calm and chaos coexist in a patchwork of styles: from school-like images of animals and art historical references (such as the tulip from Flemish flower paintings) to tree branches creeping across the canvas like barbed wire and geometric combinations of triangles and squares. In an interview for art magazine See All This, Aldridge said the following about his work: 'I explore how much decoration an image can withstand before it succumbs to it. Representations of nature, such as images of birds, often symbolise something else. It becomes an element in the painting itself. I am curious about how many elements I can connect together so that they form a unity before chaos ensues. I love it when art and science intersect, when art is about understanding the world, as was common in the Middle Ages.'
Christian Ouwens Galerie
James Aldridge (1971, Kent, UK) lives with his family in the forests of Småland in Sweden. He enjoys listening to black metal music because of the dark, mystical symbolism hidden within it, can spend hours watching birds and considers art a way to explore the boundaries of the human psyche, the cosmos and the living nature on intellectual, emotional, artistic and spiritual levels. Aldridge's paintings testify to an illusory universe in which animals, flowers, plants, decorative, new-age elements and abstract forms coexist. It quickly becomes clear that we are not so much looking at a fantasised wilderness, but rather witnessing a psychological space in which fantasy and reality, reason and imagination, dark and light, calm and chaos coexist in a patchwork of styles: from school-like images of animals and art historical references (such as the tulip from Flemish flower paintings) to tree branches creeping across the canvas like barbed wire and geometric combinations of triangles and squares. In an interview for art magazine See All This, Aldridge said the following about his work: 'I explore how much decoration an image can withstand before it succumbs to it. Representations of nature, such as images of birds, often symbolise something else. It becomes an element in the painting itself. I am curious about how many elements I can connect together so that they form a unity before chaos ensues. I love it when art and science intersect, when art is about understanding the world, as was common in the Middle Ages.'
Christian Ouwens Galerie