Previously, I already made use of the theme “Make-up/Camouflage” at the gallery IN SITU as a connecting link between the works of Eric Angenot, David Kowalkowski and Martijn Schuppers.
Because camouflage also plays a significant role as a shape and colour item in our contemporary society, where fashion and design ever more explicitly are part of it, I would like to continue to use this issue and to investigate it in relation to the work of some artists who refer to their environment. Indeed, it is for IN SITU important that art presentations are always linked to socially relevant themes. The dazzle-paintings have fallen into disuse within the range of camouflage as a weapon of war but it remains the kind of camouflage that appeals the most to the imagination. Furthermore, the dazzle technique has direct links with cubism (still one of the most important revolutions in modern history of art). The artists in particularly are at the base of the camouflage technique.
The dazzle technique that naval painter Wilkinson developed and brought to the English war soils, consisted in painting viviante colours in irregular patterns. Enough reason to once again focus on the relationship between art and some aspects of camouflage.
Gallery InSi2,
Eric Angenot – David Kowalkowski – Martijn Schuppers
The beginning of 2009 overlaps for gallery IN SITU with the opening of a second exhibition space that is visible from the street from early morning until late at night. It is envisaged that, in this space in the city centre, a link is being created to the activities at the main gallery. For the first exhibition at InSi2, I have chosen to present the earlier Works of three artists to the general public. In the future, it is possible that installations will be shown that would have been especially created for this space. This display window is ideal for a wider audience to experience contemporary art. Since this space is situated in a busy street centre, I hope to see some kind of window-shopping activity, with a positive effect on the number of visitors in the main gallery. Since the Molenstraat is also a shopping street, the activities in InSi2 will be regularly linked to the initiatives of merchant associations and the city administration and projects will also be on display outside the regular gallery season.
Galerie IN SITU,
Eric Angenot – Martijn Schuppers
In this exhibition,recent work of both artists is to be seen, where the emphasis is on the ‘dazzle’ element.
Schuppers Martijn (°NL, 1967) makes paintings that are in set-up non-figurative, the materials that he uses are the essence of the work. Paint and solvent on a canvas create the painting.
In a text about his recent works (shown in gallery IN SITU) from the series ‘Air Brush Structure Paintings’ of 2007-2008, he writes: “The outcome of the process can only distance itself from the ‘artificially manufactured’ and can occur as a natural image, as long as the artist tries to withdraw himself from any judgement during the time of the creative process.
Everything happens within the territory where contradictions in picturesque reproductive act find each other in a status-quo and form a picture together. The painting was only an intermediary, a catalyst, a wilful arranger. This is an endogenous painting, a painting that shows itself inside out. The exterior of the interior.
The paintings ‘dazzle’ our eyes because they occur as natural images. They manifest a seemingly natural internal life. It might be structures and elements which are not visible to the naked eye, but of which we suspect that they are. Our confidence in the scientific evolution is so substantial that also these unintentional performances are experienced as real reproductions of an inner life.
It is not the intention of Schuppers to create a presentation, but through the work process an illusionist world is created that ensures that all kinds of associations arise with, for example, microscopic images of biological processes.