andriesse~eyck gallery invites you to Rob Johannesma’s solo exhibition negen elegieën.
With a focus on colour and materiality, the artist transports us to the immaterial world that emerges within the boundaries of the canvas. Each painting is an investigation of the process of looking, in which our gaze shifts between the tangibility of the painting’s surface and the suggestion of a landscape.
What do we see when we zoom in on the finer details of a photograph or painting? When we stand close to the image do we see more? Does the painting or photograph then reveal a deeper meaning? Or is meaning lost because we lose sight of the context of the image? This paradox - the closer we are to the details, the greater the metamorphosis of the whole - runs like a thread through Rob Johannesma’s artistic practice, regardless of the medium in which he works. The paintings echo the motifs such as layering, depth and space, he used in his earlier videos, collages and photographic work to explore the process of looking.
The Dutch title of the exhibition, negen elegieën, which translates as nine elegies, is a play on words. It consists of a palindrome (‘negen’) and an anagram (elegie, which becomes eigeel, or egg yolk). Egg yolk is the main ingredient of egg tempera, the paint Johannesma used to create his paintings. A mixture of pigment and egg, it is a paint unlike any other, producing colours that appear bright, matt and powdery on the canvas; the surface becomes smooth and flat, causing the smudges, streaks and stains in the painting to blend with the linen or cotton.
The paintings in the exhibition negen elegieën are meditations on painting in its most rudimentary form: no subject, no preconceived idea or reference, no composition or structure, only brushstrokes and paint, varying in colour, consistency, and character, applied layer by layer, one by one, over, across and next to each other. The resulting images lack any form of representation, yet there is still much to see. The paintings’ semi-transparent layers create vistas and depth, slowly drawing your eye deeper into the distance. The smooth, even surface of the painting comes to life.
Besides paintings, Johannesma is also showing a new artist book, entitled negen elegieën. The book is a compilation of double-sided prints; an associative collection of photographic material through which the artist zooms in and out on his own oeuvre and practice. Negen elegieën is a sequel to the artist’s book glass-blue days, published in 2020. Both books are on display in the gallery.
Rob Johannesma (1970, Geleen, NL) studied at the de Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam (1993-1997), the Cooper Union, New York (1996-1997) and De Ateliers Amsterdam (1997-1999). Afterwards, he completed residencies at Internationales Künstlerhaus Villa Concordia, Bamberg (2001-2002) and Projectstudio KNIR, Rome (2005-2006). His expertise spans across various media such as video works, collages, installations, photographs, paintings and drawings. Johannesma’s work has been a part of many (solo and group) exhibitions in museum and galleries, both national and international, including Venice Biennial (2001), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2001), De Hallen, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem (2002, 2006), Kunstpalast Düsseldorf (2005), ar/ge kunst Galerie Museum, Bolzano (2012), Galleria Lia Rumma (2012), 13de Istanbul Biennale (2013), Galerie Ron Mandos, Amsterdam (2014, 2015), Galerie Albada Jelgersma, Amsterdam (2020, 2021), and WG terrain, Amsterdam (2021).