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11 march 2024, Flor Linckens
Last chance: hidden trophies in Galerie Bart
(Hidden) Trophies, Galerie Bart. Photo: David Meulenbeld
Until 16 March, Galerie Bart in Amsterdam is presenting a duo exhibition, spotlighting two artists who employ found materials in surprising ways. In a sense, Britte Koolen and Tim Wunderink celebrate the hidden, the overlooked and the discarded in this exhibition, bringing to light the beauty in the everyday.
The circle plays a pivotal role in Britte Koolen's minimalist practice. It is a shape loaded with meaning: symbolising infinity, perfection, harmony and balance, while also reflecting shapes in both nature and the cosmos. Koolen explores the tension between an object, the observer and the space they inhabit. She is also interested in our seemingly universal inclination towards order amid chaos. The artist invites us to view her work as a kind of respite in our image and sound-saturated lives. In an interview with TalentHub Brabant, Koolen said, “Through my work, I seek a balance between everything that is happening around us and the calm, order and balance of my sculptural installations. Visually, they are instantly recognisable by their sense of order and regularity and by their balanced colour palette. I'm intrigued when people only notice my work after they've passed it two or three times. Suddenly, the hustle and bustle of the day is broken, and they take the time to look at something completely different.” Koolen works with incredible precision, both in terms of balance and the placement of the final work.
(Hidden) Trophies, Galerie Bart. Photo: David Meulenbeld
In terms of materials, she is interested in a certain reduction, aiming to distill the essence. By reusing materials, she invites us to view objects without the everyday noise. Koolen recently completed a residency program at PADA in Portugal, where she found inspiration and material on an abandoned industrial site. Found objects had to meet two criteria: they had to be intact and they had to have round shapes. As a result, the exhibition at Galerie Bart displays two types of her work: revalued found objects in earthy and industrial colours and works in the bright red and purple that characterises a lot of her pieces. Koolen was born in 1994 in the Netherlands, and her work has been shown during This Art Fair, OBJECT, Miami Art Week, at De Balie in Amsterdam and in Elle Decoration. After graduating from the HKU art academy in 2018, she was nominated for an SBK Young Talent Award. Read an interview with the artist here.
Tim Wunderink, The Morning 2, 2023, Galerie Bart
Tim Wunderink is equally fascinated by found objects, which he collects on the streets, at construction sites or in thrift stores. He strips these objects of their original function, often with a healthy dose of humour and curiosity. Think of air mattresses, camping chairs, car tires or an inflatable crocodile. With minimal interventions, he then transforms them into something new, for example, by stretching them on a canvas or by creating surprising combinations of materials. He often refers to abstract painting in his work, for example in the ways he thinks about shape, composition, texture, rhythm and colour. “I paints with materials so to speak,” he said in a radio interview with NPO Radio 4. The artist exercises a significant degree of control over the material. For other works, Wunderink uses only spray paint on canvas.
What immediately catches your eye in the exhibition at Galerie Bart are a number of jerry cans, which, upon closer inspection, appear to be adorned with graphic and abstracted stickers, based on photos from the artist's life. They serve as a means for Wunderink to exert control over his life, as a processing method for certain emotions. Wunderink was born in 1991 in the Netherlands and like Koolen, he graduated from the HKU in 2018. His work was subsequently presented in a KunstKoop exhibition of the Mondriaan Fund, during Tweetakt and This Art Fair, and he was invited to create work in the Opium Atelier of AVROTROS.
(Hidden) Trophies, Galerie Bart. Photo: David Meulenbeld
At Galerie Bart, the works of Koolen and Wunderink are displayed both individually and in dialogue with each other, inviting us to discover the hidden potential (and, by extension, the beauty) in everyday objects. Although Koolen and Wunderink focus on different aspects of the found objects — the former on shape and interaction with space, the latter on the transformation of function — they find common ground in their appreciation for these materials.
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