15 april 2024, Flor Linckens
Rob Johannesma's nine elegies
Until 4 May, andriesse eyck galerie in Amsterdam is hosting a solo exhibition with work by Rob Johannesma. The exhibition’s title, 'Nine Elegies', plays a linguistic trick: "negen" (nine) is a palindrome — a word that reads the same forwards and backwards — while "elegieën" (elegies) forms an anagram for "eigeel" (egg yolk), an essential ingredient in the paint that Johannesma used for these works. Furthermore, elegies are poems or pieces of music that express mourning and sadness.
Visual perception plays a central role in Johannesma's work. A few years ago, a sudden loss of vision in one eye meant he could no longer perceive depth, transforming his practice, which had been largely focused on photography and video. Color and materiality then became pivotal, offering an encompassing sensory experience in which the artist manipulates depth and shares his unique way of seeing. He is particularly interested in the immaterial, producing a meditative series of works at the Andriesse Eyck Gallery that do not guide the viewer's gaze. There are no explicit subjects; all works are untitled, compelling viewers to engage with the interaction of colors and the matte, powdery, and semi-transparent layers of tempera, sometimes mixed with oil paint.
Johannesma's work has been included in the collections of the Stedelijk Museum, the Frans Hals Museum, ABN AMRO and the AkzoNobel Art Foundation. It was exhibited at significant events such as the Venice Biennale of 2001, the Busan Biennale (2008) and the 13th Istanbul Biennale, and institutions like Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, Kunstinstituut Melly, De Vleeshal, Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam and the Frans Hals Museum.
