Gallery Mieke van Schaijk ‘s-Hertogenbosch at Ballroom 2022
During the fourth edition of 'Ballroom' in Antwerp, Gallery Mieke van Schaijk from 's-Hertogenbosch shows recent work by Dorota Jurczak, Roy Villevoye, Peter McDonald and Jelle Spruyt.
'Ballroom' can be visited from 26 to 29 May 2022 in the BorGerHub at Turnhoutstebaan 92 in Borgerhout, Antwerp.
In 2022, according to a proposal by Ilse Roosens (curator of Mu.ZEE in Ostend), 'Ballroom' will be dominated by the concept of the ‘grotesque' to which the artists shown by Mieke van Schaijk relate in their own way.
The macabre and fantastic works of Dorota Jurczak (Warsaw 1978) combine influences from folklore and mythology, along with representations from her own imagination. The figures in her work are mainly indebted to Eastern European iconography and exist in dark, whimsical dream worlds, surrounded by anthropomorphic animals, creeping forests, hair and all kinds of other things of deformed creatures. Jurczak's highly stylized works are like fragments of an ongoing surrealistic story that begins and ends without needing to have any meaning.
Dorota Jurczak's work has been featured in numerous international exhibitions, including the Seville and Berlin Biennales. Jurczak has also presented her work at the Tate Modern in London; the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, Kunstraum Walcheturm in Zurich, CAPC Musée
in Bordeaux and MMA PS1 in New York. The Dutch writer and artist Margriet Kemper says about her installation with four ceramic shoes: “A shoe is always a shoe, even if it is only one - that's what it tells us. There's a bit of philosophy there. A shoe has a sole, a heel, a tongue, a toe, a throat. Well, that's pure poetry. Does the work show the concept of 'shoe'? Yes and no. The shoes are common and peculiar at the same time. And yes, they are undeniably shoes, but why clay? And why so long?
Look how endearing they are, how sensitive, how pedantic, how cocky, how smart! It says: Look at objects, how beautiful and how absurd they are and how much we can learn from them.”
Jelle Spruyt (BE 1979) is a versatile Antwerp artist. He works mainly with textiles and various everyday objects, working with textures, plastic, wire to develop sculptures, masks and assemblies. He appreciates the concept of recycling. The various objects he uses, such as plastic cutlery, a garden hose or floating devices, are placed in a new environment.
You got to see here 100 years of textile history.
Peter McDondald (JP 1973) lives and works alternately in London and Tokyo. He was educated at St Martin's School and he obtained his MA in Fine Art at the Royal Academy in London in 2000. His paintings explore aspects of human behavior and gradually form a progressive encyclopedia of images and scenarios. McDonald's use of intense colors and universal subjects depict a world of lucid realism, with transformations full of references to modern life such as iphones, queues, fashion shows and cafes. His paintings explore pictorial space by playfully exploring perspective and form. This heightened sense of reality is a means for the artist to articulate experience and meaning.
Gallery Mieke van Schaijk ‘s-Hertogenbosch at Ballroom 2022
Roy Villevoye (Maastricht 1960) who was educated at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam has been known since 1992, when he first travelled to the Asmat Papuans, for his work in which the western frame of reference does not lend itself to his visual practice. Initially he made paintings, but through his frequent stays with the Asmat also films (often in collaboration with Jan Dietvorst), photographs and realistic sculptures in which his experiences with the Asmat culture are central. He himself says about his development: "My work has its roots in painting. In the course of time, the formal approach and a fundamental painterly viewpoint have made way for a working method in which art emerges from encounters, experiences and adventures in our Western world and far beyond."
More generally, his work has themes of colour, cultural codification and identity. About his latest work, the writer and filmmaker Peter Delpeut says: "His images bounce back to the viewer, they create a confusing discomfort that actually stimulates thought. Always the question: Can you be a guest in someone else's culture? And: What is colour? Of a skin or of a flag, of a 'colour sample' or of a human being? It bears witness to his audacity to put this work into the fray just now.
At Ballrooms recent work from the series: 'Update (Black & White and Skin Colour Simulations)' (2021/2022) 'Colours I Like' (2021) and a photo work like 'Folding a Flag' (2017) will be on display, alongside older work from 1991/1992, namely the painting 'Know How # 2' (from the series 'Camouflage and Skin Colour Simulations').
In the context of Borgerhout, the Antwerp district where more than 180 nationalities live together, where Ballroom is organised, his work reflects mutual human relationships.