A characteristic of the present is that it holds a certain potential: the present is always a bit more and a bit different than an isolated moment in history. ‘Drifting and Dreaming’ brings together the work of five young artists. Manifest in that work is a shifting, fluid, unfinished quality, full of potential. It shows that both past and present are, by definition, in a continual state of transformation as they reinvent themselves and each other time and again. What the works of these five artists have in common is their lack of a programmatic approach. Each works in a specific medium without feeling the need to question that medium in a critical manner, being open-mind about the past and the future. Be it sculpture, painting or performance: they play with and in the chosen medium. In the individual stances that arise, the main focus is a contemplation of possibilities: Drifting and Dreaming.
What first comes across in the paintings of Inez de Brauw (NL, 1989) is their materiality, a peculiar mix of wood, plaster and paint. Her work, which involves the shifting around of elements from reality, is based on the awareness of a continual friction between historical periods and cultures. Whether these happen to be spaces like those we know from lifestyle glossies, or age-old decorative patterns on wallpaper or textiles: in De Brauw’s images ‘things’ are deconstructed and presented as abstract concepts, briefly materializing yet essentially intangible, being part of an ongoing migratory movement.
Ricardo van Eyk (NL, 1993) considers himself a painter. His work arises from an amazement with regard to the urban environment and the way in which the city functions as a ‘support’ bearing the traces of human presence, the lapsing of time and signs of decay. Images from his surroundings that he finds meaningful are isolated and used within his own work in order to discover the logic of those images. Van Eyk works on the basis of wooden constructions: boards that are placed against each other, the saw-cut becoming a visual element, while paint is applied and sanded away and applied again. Found objects, as well as the use of everyday household materials, underscore his playful way of working.
In her work Claudia Martínez Garay (Peru, 1983) focuses on objects and their cultural contexts: she questions the way in which artefacts are preserved, distributed and transformed. In doing so she raises critical issues as to the influence of Western colonial thought on these processes, in which appropriation is a key factor. What role can art play in considering the problematics of existing relationships? In the exhibition Martínez Garay’s objects represent customs and stories from her home country which emphatically mingle with aesthetic, social or economic elements from other contexts.
Text, performance, sound, sculpture: the work of Lorena Solís Bravo (Peru, 1991) is a dynamic mix of media and energies. Meanings are never pinned down: that much seems to become clear in Solís Bravo’s works. “My artistic practice revolves around the use of language and materials in relation to space. Through these materials, I research myself and my surroundings. Departing from mental abstraction, the works slowly develop into something else, something more, something new. Something I am no longer able to understand: the work has become alienated from its maker. With sculptures I explore the physical field around me, with performance I explore a mental one.”
The works of Anouk van Zwieten (NL, 1991) are painterly crystallizations of all that she experiences in her day-to-day life. Often a painting begins with a quick drawing in paint on the canvas. That drawing gives rise to associations, to which she then responds. A form takes shape; on top of that comes another drawing, and new forms take shape; and it goes on like that: Van Zwieten’s approach is intuitive and has a fun-loving, cavorting character. Perhaps that is partly due to the fact that her works always involve recognizable objects from reality, anything from lemons and cans to slices of bread. But the most intriguing aspect of her ‘crowded’ paintings is, in fact, a certain emptiness. The abundance of forms and objects is supported, as it were, by parts of the image that have been painted away. The tension of suggestion determines the appeal of Van Zwieten’s whirling works.