As part of Art Brussels on Gallery Viewer, we present 3 x 3: Three weeks, three artists per week (nine artists all up), with new selections uploaded on Thursday, June 4, and Thursday, June 11.
3 x 3 Part three features the dream team that would have gone to Art Brussels 2020, and will go in 2021: Matthew Allen, Jonathan van Doornum, and Pieter Dobbelsteen.
Matthew Allen (New Zealand 1981)
“Between the self and the world there exists an osmotic relationship. Materials, objects, environments and the perceiving self interpenetrate and mutually define one another through a subtle outpouring and reception of energies and resonance.
Through a lengthy process of layering, compacting and polishing my works bring the inherent property of graphite’s shine to its material limits. This concentration of activity and densification of material yields a surface which is mercurial and highly reflective whilst still maintaining an accretion of tactile gesture and evidence of the working process.
As objects of aesthetic contemplation, my works are aimed at perception and experience more so than intellect and concept. Materially and perceptually they inhabit and present opposed states simultaneously: tactility & atmosphere, solidity & transience, light & darkness, presence & absence, surface, reflection, depth… these states are brought together in a holistic aesthetic experience through the work, its environment and the movement of the viewer.”
Jonathan van Doornum (the Netherlands 1987)
"I love antennas and halos. At first sight, these random elements do not seem to have any relationship with each other. However, for me there is an obvious link. The social conflict between science and religion, of which this is an elaboration of, is a great inspiration to me. Antennas and halos occur regularly in my sculptures and make things visible that are normally invisible. Data and invisible cultural signals are having a major influence on our life. Many of my sculptures transmit, reach and escape. My work mainly takes place in the medium of sculpture and installations. It can be seen as a sculptural response to a society in transmission. I translate my carefully selected social, cultural and historical references into form and imagination. Through this process, I slowly create an oeuvre that makes cross references in time and space. I build and connect in a playful way, creating an unexpected context. My handwriting is partly defined by the by the fact that I construct all the elements myself. Materiality and craftsmanship are therefore of great importance to me.”
Pieter Dobbelsteen (the netherlands, 1973)
"Drawing is the most fundamental artistic practice for me, it’s where the hand directly follows the wandering mind, where nothing can be hidden. A good drawing expresses the bare structures of being (and being human). It catches being –ever moving, ever-fluid– in the moment. Skeletal and ruinous, the lines dance on the paper, gesture becomes figuration. My drawings are physical as much as mental, expressive as much as thoughtful. They come from a pre-verbal space, where language is only just beginning to take shape, long before semantics, but not before meaning.”