The Ill Matched Lovers - Sander van Deurzen - exhibition catalogue

the ill matched lovers

sander van deurzen

Project Space Tilburg - Gust van Dijk 27 november 2014 - 24 january 2015

Curator’s Statement I’ve just seen a lemonade concoction and never thought I could commit this fast to an illusion until now when I saw the recent work of the master of the sponge Sander van Deurzen. He lets me chew on images. Vikes! And for sure I enjoyed devouring that chocolate. That’s why I’m licking my fingers still. His works definitely do not make me feel low on energy and every time when I look at them they hug me little bit tighter.

Size does not matter as in either large, light admitting canvasses or small narrative works on board where the guest stars, wide brushstrokes, thin spores, fluffs, and blobs warmly welcome you into van Deurzen’s world, where you discover how little is needed to awaken your imagination. How little the eye needs to highjack your fantasy. Where dots scan suggest a mouth-watering gateaux or a sludgy smelly drainage system. Where the more intense colours rake the forms, detail and contrast, and where watery brushstrokes create blur and out of focus narratives.

The art of painting is a compelling and endless seducer that is pleasing to the eye and because of its masterly artistic illusion. However, ultimately it unmasks an ethical framework predicate on vanity of sensory knowledge and of earthly existence as such Sander van Deurzen’s work always has a serious and unsettling undertone which you will no doubt discover too.

This year I made a small journey on the wide subject of painting with five exhibitions demonstrating different artistic handwritings to depict the world around us using painterly materials, layering and métier. Sander van Deurzen’s work could not be missed in this series. In spectrum completely opposite of Thomas Braida and CostinChioreanu, barely touching on the abstracts of GielLouws. Unlike like Bram Braam’s architectural cloakings or Alex Baam’s reality shows on card board. Yet each of them took us on a journey, a voyage to a new planet. Above all, into the magnificent world of visual enjoyment demonstrating that a little paint in an artist’s hand can spark the brain into illumination.

Riet van Gerven November 2014

the ill matched lovers

sander van deurzen

Project Space Tilburg - Gust van Dijk 27 november 2014 - 24 january 2015

NT 47x40cm 2014 acrylic on panel

NT 30x24cm 2014 acrylic and oil paint on panel

NT 35x30cm 2014 acrylic on panel

NT 35x30cm 2014 acrylic and oil paint on panel

NT 47x40cm 2014 acrylic and oil paint on panel

NT 33x26cm 2014 acrylic on panel

pools let’s float around in bliss or in wretched voids touch a surface of equal grit smoothen harmony from noise I’m loving all of it the shapeless, shameful otherworldly forms they chase the ancient, dusty norms of practice let’s pop balloons and sink in blue illuminate the values of these present days show waste away from unshakable truths and laugh in the face of entropy they excavated primal thoughts swept away the grains gained windows often lost sought mildly through the panes let’s find ourselves in blackish pink shades to fall into and black out through a liquid veil - let us sink and think - think aloud this place is translucent and inhabited by shouts sounds and shadows flattened particles stretched out planes desolate skies and swimming pools

NT 40x35cm 2014 acrylic on panel

NT 40x31cm 2014 acrylic and oil paint on panel

NT 31x26cm 2014 acrylic on panel

NT 36x30cm 2014 acrylic and oil paint on panel

Broad and bright colour planes and carefully painted human-like figures alternate each other within the work of Sander van Deurzen. The artist derives his images from Art History and advertisement brochures and makes them into still lives, portraits or landscapes. Although his work as abstract as it is figurative, but never a boring compromise - is firmly rooted, it possesses a playful quality that disconcerts the spectator.

Sander’s work is satirical, full of contrast and opinionated. The artist himself aims for a ‘painters-rush’ and his works are, although well prepared, subject to an energetic spontaneity.

The large ‘brush’ strokes make up a striking part of Sander’s style. He says that he applies these strokes with sponges which means that he always has to spread the canvas out on the floor to prevent the diluted acrylic paint from dripping. White paint is absent as van Deurzen only uses colour: the visible white is provided by the canvas itself, either translucent through the paint, or visible in the absence of paint, which is then carefully removed to create white lines. Black is also regarded a colour since it is created out of a mixture of several colours to avoid pure black. The human-shapes are anonymous models from, for instance, travelling brochures, or small McDonalds toys, collected through the years. Transience is no longer symbolised in a classical manner by a skull with a burned out candle, but rather as a child on an inflatable crocodile. In a playful manner, the flatness and vulgarity of these works makes them grotesque. But it would be a mistake to typify Sander as a light-hearted artist: despite the playful undertone, most of his work also displays a dark edge, an edge that Sander has been exploring more and more in recent years. In his more recent work, darkness, but also the physical (blood, teeth, saliva) play an increasing role.

Not all figurative forms are derived from contemporary images. Some seem to solely express the geometrical: a sphere, watching along as a lonely eye, the, in perspective, misshapen cube, a small vase, a subtle

thin wire that is hanging from the table and the drain pipe from which a drop of water hangs almost suspended in the air. A Freudian reading of the works would identify a phallic symbolism and even Sander admits that the exuberant usage of the colour pink gives the works a certain erotic theme.

Van Deurzen’s work is full and rich, especially in contrast, but it is never ‘grey’, never meaningless or flat, because that would be a risk of hybrids. Always playful, sometimes dark and sometimes frivolous.

Although his work knows forms and themes inspired by Giorgio de Chirico, thereby referring to seventeenth century still lives, it is crystallised from within the here and now. - text by Robert Proost

SEA Foundation (SEA) is a private, non-profit, artist-run initiative that initiates and coordinates events, residencies and exhibitions. SEA provides mentoring and on-going support for artists as well as physical space for production, presentation and research.

In all its activities the organization is fueled by visual arts. Transgressing the boundaries between different cultures and disciplines, SEA always puts context and the idea before the medium. By working in different cultural contexts worldwide, the foundation generates discussion by exposing and intervening within, as well as being part of, cultural processes that concentrate on current (emerging) social, political and ecological issues. SEA supports these processes in becoming more productive and solid by transforming them into in long-term working relationships and provides continuous support to guide these temporary projects in society, arts and culture.

Artist Sander van Deurzen Curator Riet van Gerven Designer JinHee Kwon www.a-text-forms.com Text and poems Robert Proost www.robertproost.nl Translation Heleen Klomp Office assistants Joost Ariens Wendy Wilbers Jan-Willem van Rijnberk without his generous support none of this would have been possible

Š 2014 SEA Foundation www.seafoundation.eu Project Space Tilburg - Gust van Dijk

Tivolistraat 22, 5017HP Tilburg, The Netherlands +31 (0)13 5444495

Š 2014 SEA Foundation www.seafoundation.eu