In the autumn of 2014 I made twenty paintings in which the same visual elements repeatedly appear. Disappear
would be a better description because each painting is an attempt to dispel the image, melt, dissolve or disrupt it.
Perhaps the teasing repetition creates something incidental and casual, something that resists simple interpretation.
A painting doesn’t have to be about anything – not even about itself. It can generate from the artistic curiosity about
the effect of colour and space. Each painting has distinct properties that become visible through comparison – they
show much of the tangible world: movement, shifting, scraping, sweeping, jostling, in front, behind, under, above,
light, dark. A fullness that the painting stores like a magnet and that is connected to sensory experience.
Painting carries a history within it: of the Khoi San hunters, the Anubis in Luxor, Meidias’ Aphrodite, the secret of
Piero, the spectres of Velazquez, the folds of Tiepolo, the quiet of Friedrich, the scars of Munch, the emptiness of
De Chirico, the mist of Pollock, the rings of Mangold.
Painting is painting *
Art is made from art *
Toon Verhoef
