The 12th Monkey - solotentoonstelling Pieter Jan Martyn @ Frank Taal Gallery
First of all, we wish you a healthy, loving, contact-rich, inspired and inspiring 2021!
Our first exhibition of 2021 by the Flemish artist Pieter Jan Martyn was originally scheduled for April 16, 2020. The title refers to the film 12 Monkeys, which deals with a pandemic-ravaged world. The exhibition The 12th Monkey has since been postponed four times.
On Saturday 13 February we hope to finally be able to open this long-awaited exhibition and to introduce Pieter jan to the gallery with his first solo.
We are really looking forward to this!
The opening of The 12th Monkey can only be visited by reserving a free time slot online. We are currently working on making an event. Follow us on our social media and please keep checking our website.
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If allowed the opening speech will be performed by the Belgian curator and art advisor Sven Vanderstichelen, supplemented by hypnotist Patrick Pickart. This is subject to change in connection with developments with COVID.
The 12th Monkey
For his ninth solo exhibition, painter Pieter Jan Martyn is looking for a way to paint closer to himself. In his previous series, he lost himself in research into dark and violent subjects such as De Bende van Nijvel, autopsies, the murder of JFK, and de Rote Armee Fraktion. If he had to be able to free himself from all stories and start from his subconscious, what would he paint? He looks for the answer to that question in hypnosis.
The hypnosis sessions themselves were photographed, documented, and serve as the basis for inspiration for most of the paintings in this exhibition. This series of figurative works, mostly composed of grisailles and "documentary" in nature, are in line with the well-known work from the artist's oeuvre.
The works Martyn painted during these hypnosis sessions are, on the other hand, remarkably colorful, expressive, and rather lyrically abstract in nature. These count as autonomous works and consciously as a confrontation are part of the exhibition.