Matijs van de Kerkhof
Matijs van de Kerkhof, Nuenen (NL), http://www.matijsvdkerkhof.dse.nl
In my work I am searching for the ultimate brushstroke that can represent the urgency of the moment as well as a reference to a past unknown and yet familiar to me. The two dimension illusions of life as represented in the paintings by the Old Masters, are to me like stones thrown in the collective imagination and my interpretations are more or less based on the the last ripple in the water. I’m not so much interested in the factual depiction of the event, but the potential of an portrait or genre painting to become archetypical and evoke different emotions and reactions beyond their original meaning. These paintings have unwillingly gotten a ghostlike quality because of the time element, it adds a transcending feel to the experience of the imagery. Some seem to contain secrets lost and unattainable to us. I love things I cannot understand and I like the fact the past is never really a fixated entity. We put our subjective and cultivated turbid layers over it to make sense of life.
I try to incorporate the aforementioned transcendent quality and add to that two dimensional illusion a dimension that is extremely personal, a search for that ultimate brushstroke. A dynamic struggle influenced by all the forces within, aesthetical, sensual, sexual, emotional, intellectual, just like the forces all events and people from the past have been subject to. Life and imagery are therefore ongoing mysteries, never to be completely understood but best to be experienced.
workandview 