Selected Past Exhibitions

JEROEN VRIJSEN and NELIS van HULTEN: Finding Direction Magnetically
Recent paintings and sculpture
7 April 5 May 2018

Jeroen Vrijsen and Nelis van Hulten are graduates (2000 and 2002) of the Academy for Art and Design Den Bosch and live and work in Eindhoven, where they are very active in the art community–Vrijsen as a painter and van Hulten as a sculptor, and on paper. Their work is also exhibited internationally in museums and institutions. The exhibition’s title comes from the signature song of Sean Penn’s 2007, Oscar-nominated film “Into the Wild”, about self discovery through journeying ever deeper into unknown territory. The film serves as a metaphor for the unknown and unpredictable artistic travels they undertake with each new artwork they create. As Vrijsen writes, “The freedom we grant ourselves carries certain risks. These risks and our illusory freedom I bring into my paintings.” From wall-sized to small-scale works, Vrijsen is not shy to leave empty large areas of his canvas, while his varied brush strokes add structure and colour to his seemingly abstract compositions that suggest city scapes, buildings, the sea, woods, a figure or a car. We are automatically drawn into the painting, and every time we look, the vague forms resolve into something new. With humor, cynicism and idealism, Vrijsen paints in freedom without any pressure from the outside world. Nelis van Hulten also moves in uncharted spaces. The everyday objects he collects and assembles–a pig’s bladder, a piano lid, or a baby’s bed–he transforms into artworks which lend an impression of the mental landscape he confronts and instinctively navigates. The questions and wonderment that daily events elicit in him he translates into sculptures and works on paper, in which desire, power, hope and transience are regularly recurring themes. In this duo presentation, formal, abstract objects in isolation enter into a dialogue with other works to take on new meanings, as van Hulten’s works are surrounded by Vrijsen’s paintings. They interact to heighten the complexity and mystery to form a dynamic and intriguing exhibition.