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Brief
Declaration
of
Intent on personal preferences and the significance of the word realism or, in other words, inside versus outside Owing to the fact that a phenomenon's subjective and objective standards are virtually always intertwined, in addition to yielding siting pointers as part of the bigger picture an overview of one's personal criteria can also provide information on the bigger picture itself. The usually meticulously elaborated still lifes, landscapes and tableaux forming part of the collection of Lieve Hemel Gallery are characterised by a blend of subtle and subdued tension of magic light and of something that more or less defies verbal definition although it can be sensed: unconditional emotional commitment to painting, as a passion that dominates one's entire life. There is a connection with the long-standing painting tradition of the Low Countries, which in what has been most neutrally dubbed "contemporary realism" for decades has evolved into, and has been enriched with, today's achievements: a painting idiom which strikes a delicate balance between the thin-skinned and the down-to-earth, between sensitivity and logic, between distance and abandonment. At which point I should note that the word realism really is a diversion as the debate on something that is nothing more than a tool usually fails to do justice to the associative powers and the wealth of expression that are encapsulated in the talent to articulate. Of course the same could be said of "more spontaneous" painting techniques, although this is an insight that appears not to be mutual - could confusion between the inside and the outside be to blame for this? For more fundamental contemplations on this subject, please refer to the chapters entitled "The First Attempt", "The Second Attempt" and, wait for it, "The Third Attempt" in Lieve Hemel's 1995 publication, "The Patience of a Saint" (Met Engelengeduld). |