Taiyu Beaux Art Salon in Chiayi is hosting the solo exhibition “Points of view: The Origin of Script” by renowned Dutch artist Jan Maarten VOSKUIL(1964, Arnhem, NL) from Jan. 8th to Mar. 30th. Especially for this exhibition, the artist spent the past few months in Taiwan and created a series of new works in collaboration with Bug2 Gallery from Xin Ying, Tainan.
▍Breaking the Boundaries of Painting
Jan Maarten VOSKUILstretches the borders of painting by stretching it into the third dimension and by cutting up the painting itself into modules. After he reconstructs the painting. He starts turning the stretcher bars into a spatial construction before it is tensioned. Smooth curved surfaces are created. The use of geometry, in particular the circle, in the design of the frame and playing with monochrome painting shows kinship with minimalism from the sixties and seventies. With the spatial constructions he builds new, often modular paintings in which he manages to circumvent self-imposed limitations and to expand his work into an elaborate oeuvre that explores the boundary between painting, sculpture, design and architecture.
▍The Evolution of His Artistic Journey
In his own words: “ The development of my work has been a gradual process of many small steps, but looking back it is possible to say something about it in a few major steps. I started out as a figurative, even realistic painter, with a passion for the “claire obscure,” the rendering of light and dark.
▍The Shift to Reductionism
As a traditional painter, you soon feel the ballast of history, and like many other abstract painters, I started reducing, in my own way. I was literally leaving out parts of reality, saving the white canvas. To the point that the canvas was only white. I now no longer painted the light-dark, but began to “concretize” it by stretching my canvases spatially.
▍Architectural Influences in His Work
Now I again experienced the ballast of history. A more recent history. The sixties and seventies with the zero group and especially some Italian artists. In particular, Enrico Castelani. I learned that Castelani was originally an architect who became a painter. I decided to take the opposite path. I would be a painter who will build. This is one of the motives for creating modular works. Works that, like architecture, are calculated at the drawing board.
▍The Role of White Modules
For two years I made only white modules. White, because any “story” had to be reduced and, after all, color also tells a story. In a white module I kept the promise, not only of what would be in the painting, but also what the painting itself would look like; how big, what shape, etc.
▍Reintroducing Color through
In the circle works, I used color again for the first time. The circles were nothing but a representation of the dimensions of the work itself. The color didn't really matter. Titles like “There is no point in red” or Pointless yellow” pointed this out, but through this back door I was able to allow color again; shamelessly and deliciously, because being consistent isn't everything either. Since then, I have also stopped making individual modules. The building has remained, but the paintings are now “finished”.
▍Recent Developments in Circle Paintings
The “Balancing act in greys,” “Cubist circle” and “Three is a crowd” are the most recent development in the circle paintings. The closed forms each consist of quarter circles or quarter ellipses. An ellipse is also called a circle seen at an angle. A perspective circle. So they are different perspectives of the same form; the circle. Thus they can also be seen as cubist representations of a circle. The final forms resemble stones smoothed by the river.
▍The core of 'The Origin of Script'
“The origin of script” is a key work in the exhibition. Again, the four individual forms consist of “cubist circles.” The shapes are not painted now, but consist of modules, a bit similar to the white modules I made in the past. The natural forms contrast with the geometric pattern created in the unpainted linen. To my Western eyes, this pattern is reminiscent of Chinese writing. Unlike Western writing, characters in Chinese are not only behind or below each other but also “in” each other. This prompts me to play with shapes and colors that can emerge from the work or rather, arise within the work itself. I call these works “births,” but they can also be understood as characters. These letters or characters are in turn distortions of another work from the past; the series The Alphabet of silly Colors” (2012/2013).
▍Promise
In “The origin of script” arises the promise of endless amount of color, form, meaning and story and at the same time there is the emptiness of the white linen and the completely empty center of the work. In making the work, it started to dizzying me; everything arises from nothing; duality, Yin and Yang, Chi, Zen, Caligraphy. It's all in there, unintentionally, or is it?”
