The Lure of Evil
Natasja van Kampen, Ed Pien, Justin Wijers – drawings
Anne Wenzel – sculptures
19 February – 25 March 2012
In his work Taiwanese/Canadian artist Ed Pien’s (1958) continues the tradition of the depiction of hell. His brush drawings are inhabited by monsters, demons and spirits, all drawn in elegant, festering lines. Justin Wijers (1981) shows the consequences of evil; he draws victims of violent crimes and fills their outlines in with texts and miniatures in exquisite colors. This seduces the spectator to look at the image intensively up to the point that the complete outline of the body emerges and you suddenly are aware of what exactly you are looking at. In this way, Justin Wijers confronts us with a raw reality that we are faced with through the media every day, but usually close ourselves off from.
Anne Wenzel (1972) also refers to topical matters such as terrorism and warfare, but in her work people are absent. She makes small ceramic car wrecks, torn apart by explosives, witnesses in miniature of terrorist violence.
Natasja van Kampen (1970) shows evil in a more covert form. She draws round conference tables with government leaders deciding over the fate of many. Her drawings depict conferences such as those of Yalta and Potsdam, where the division of post-war Europe was decided. Another work shows the empty armchairs in the lounge of the German Press Club in Berlin in 1936, where a large portrait of Hitler used to hang. In this drawing the portrait has been reduced to a neutral rectangular shape on the wall.
Anne Wenzel participates in the exhibiton with the collaboration of Gallery Akinci Amsterdam.