Drawings
Marcel van Eeden, Johan Gustavsson
Daniel Jensen, Rens Krikhaar, Sebastiaan Schlicher
3 September – 16 October 2011
For many years Marcel van Eeden (1965) has been working on an impressive body of work consisting of virtuoso black and white drawings after visual material from the period before he was born. Recently he has been producing series of drawings that fall within specific categories. For instance, he has made series about ships, occultism, airplanes and explosions. In this exhibition he is showing a series about dreams. Several scenes are combined within one drawing, resembling a dream in which one image naturally flows into the other.
Johan Gustavsson (1978) draws rooms that are viewed from above. This birds-eye perspective creates distance, like observing a room while having an out-of-body experience. Photographs made by the artist himself often form the basis for his drawings. For this reason they regularly feature Johan Gustavsson’s studio and his everyday surroundings. Very concisely he draws skirting boards, ceiling and furniture as a setting for an often curious and uncomfortable scene featuring the artist himself and usually one or two others.
Daniel Jensen’s (1972) drawings resemble an out-of-control fairyland featuring dwarfs, animals and monsters. The rugged woods and caves that these creatures dwell in are drawn rudimentarily and very expressively. Scenes include a snowman standing in front of a cauldron and a dark, deformed little man on some kind of pulpit. They are grotesque and endearing at the same time, as if they’re trying to put a spell on their bizarre, degenerated world with a ritualistic act.
Rens Krikhaar (1982) shows a series of small, intimate drawings often of nocturnal scenes reminiscent of images out of a dream. The style of drawing is remarkable in the fact that it is not linear, but built up from hatchings that produce volume and degrees of light and dark. The scenes are often tranquil, a bird emerging out of the darkness or a man praying by candlelight before dinner.
Sebastiaan Schlicher (1975) depicts the world of adolescents, meandering between the insecure search for identity and the heroism and greatness of the rock star. He meticulously, but at the same time semi-naively, draws the awkwardly posing or acting adolescents in a stage-like environment. Their eyes are conspicuously hidden by a little grey area, making them anonymous and ghostlike.