In the exhibition 'Tantalizing Absence' we show videos, photos and paintings by Lon Godin and sculptures by Helen Vergouwen.
Helen Vergouwen makes abstract geometric work. That is where her fascination lies.
Her work begins with an observation, a scribble, a line, a form, a residual form, an intermediate form. Everything around her can serve as inspiration. The aim is always to achieve an absolutely abstract result, to make works that astonish not only the viewer but herself too. Vergouwen works very instinctively. With her visual language and starting points she tries to arrive at new unknown works. That starts with line drawings that slowly but surely change into a new pattern, new sketches that she reworks in order to arrive at the right shape, line, opening. The space between the lines, between the forms, but sometimes also the space between the works themselves are an important part of the work. An opening gives access to the next room. The Corten steel skin of the work, the language of the skin, the emotion of that skin play an important role. What she shows is 'power and emotion' through the 'simplicity of shapes, lines and skin'. Curator Masha van Vliet, who curated the exhibition that can now be seen in the ‘Stedelijk Museum Breda’, quotes Piet Augustijn who says about Vergouwen's work: 'The form is, above all, the carrier of her emotions'. Wonderful: 'forms as abstractions of emotions'! Helen herself sums it up as: 'In the end it is what it is!'
Lon Godin’s art expresses a fascination for movement, change and therefore time. Her images seem not to stop at the edges of the canvas, but to continue in all directions. Colors and structures pulse rhythmically in a universe of their own, not only in the films, but almost even more fascinating in the photos and especially in the paintings. "Each work is a fragment of an immense imaginary reality," Godin says. The viewer experiences an endless continuity. That is what Godin’s work is all about, the construction of a visual reality, a 'nature' created by her. Not the nature of earth, water, air, fire, but what she calls, "Nature as constant dynamic transformation". Dynamics and transformation on the flat canvas! Painting is the basis of her work. Godin says: "The painting gives the possibility to withdraw from the laws of nature." The flat canvas gives her that immense space in which time stands still and yet movement is suggested. She makes the paintings almost without exception in one continuous session, even if it takes 14 hours, or longer. The painting starts with a small preconceived series of actions that quickly turns into a form of improvisation. In the process, Godin pushes her boundaries by allowing chance and intuition. Following the exhibition 'Traces' in the ‘Stedelijk Museum 's Hertogenbosch’ in 2014 art historian Sandra Smets writes: 'In this way Godin pushes beyond the everyday and anecdotal to something more fundamental than the issues of the day.'