”Swedish artist Anna Bjerger created a painting inspired by the poem “Regels geschreven tijdens de plaatselijke vrede nummer 1” (Rules written during the local peace number 1) especially for the exhibition at Christian Ouwens Gallery on the work of Judith Herzberg. Those words gave rise to an image in her mind: paint and language touching each other, one complementing the other.
The painting, entitled ”Matchbox” (2025, oil on aluminium, 104.5 × 150 cm), is dark, deep blue. In the middle lies a matchbox. Yellow and red, brightly coloured, as if it lights up in all that darkness. Next to it is a small dot, almost invisible, as if a spark remained.
It is precisely that small box that makes the painting great: the ordinary takes on weight, a simple object as a metaphor. Just like in Herzberg’s poems, where the small says something about the big. Bjerger paints the silence, Herzberg writes it, and together they create a conversation that never ends.