Juliette Blightman
Bob Eikelboom
Job Koelewijn
Matthew Monahan
Berend Strik
Evelyn Taocheng Wang
Collage Storyboard
Galerie Fons Welters
1 Apr – 20 May 2023
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Starting point of the exhibition is Job Koelewijn's work Collage Storyboard (2023) in which techniques of collage and storyboard come together. Koelewijn's monumental work consists of images built up over years. Layer by layer is assembled from A4-sized printed paper and then cut into ever-expanding circles, like the annual rings of a tree. The image is worked through and a new layer is added. Each separate layer, each cut circle, comes together in a stop motion animation, in which high and low culture, fiction and reality merge.
Part of the exhibition are Bob Eikelboom's magnetic paintings in which he experiments with composition, colour, form and the relationship of the artwork to the viewer. Eikelboom sees painting as collages of paint; the process of painting consists of adding, removing and adding again. The cut-out magnets placed on a metal base offer the possibility of dissecting, constructing and deconstructing, as the composition can in theory be changed by moving the magnets.
Matthew Monahan uses fragmentation as a technique to break open the narrative. In Monahan's monumental, almost two-metre-high collages Sister X (2014) and Green Mind (2014), we see faces and hands drawn in charcoal recurring on several overlaid sheets of paper. The collage technique creates dynamics in the image and the figures seem to come alive. The works show a fragmented classical figure, set against a geometric background.
Berend Strik appropriates existing images and places by photographing them. He then adds information by adding new layers through stitching and textiles. In the series Deciphering the Artist's Mind, Strik addresses the myth of the artist's studio, the historically privileged space for artistic creativity and the impossible promise of a glimpse into the artist's mind. Strik photographs the studios, enlarges and prints them before stitching the surface and adding an extra layer through colours and tactile fabrics.
In her work, Juliette Blightman explores the boundary between private moments and the shared intimacy of a personal moment. In her photographs, videos, drawings, paintings and installations, Blightman takes us into her personal life, combining voyeurism with a dash of melancholy. Blightman's series Loved an image consists of black screens with white phrases interspersed with watercolours. Fragments range from conversations, messages, mails, quotes from songs, books, films, her own films. Taken out of their context, they degenerate almost into clichés: 'too much?', 'I'm really sorry about yesterday', 'me too I guess'... They are phrases that individually create images for each person and evoke memories. The horizontal sequence of the works suggests a story.
A similar storyline can be found in Evelyn Taocheng Wang's so-called naked scrolls. The unadorned long strips of paper take on the idea of the traditional Chinese hand scroll, considered the earliest Chinese book form. Painting and text alternate. Wang annotates her paintings with epigraphs, quotations, red seal imprints and references to literature. In addition to her use of collage techniques, Wang also stylistically adds layers of abstract, figurative and calligraphic elements.