16 September – 15 October 2023
The Curtain Rises
We are proud to present Mirjam Vreeswijk’s (Gorinchem, NL, 1997) first solo exhibition within the gallery. In recent months, Vreeswijk successfully exhibited in galleries in Los Angeles and New York and at art fair Art Busan in South Korea. Now she returns to our capital with an extensive series of new works.
About the exhibition
The paintings in this exhibition show the field of tension characteristic of Mirjam Vreeswijk (Gorinchem, NL, 1997). Her work is beautiful and repulsive, dark and cheerful, grand and decorative at the same time. Intangible structures of natural phenomena such as waterfalls, lakes, lava flows and explosions are made tangible and decorative by being shaped like roses or held together by a bow. Vreeswijk creates an atmosphere that is at once melancholic, uncanny, eerie, wondrous and lovely.
The work carries different realities and encourages one's own interpretation. Best Served Cold, for example shows a frozen fountain, reminiscent in form of Louise Bourgeois' creepy spiders. At the same time, it looks like a kind of museum piece, or ornament in an ice palace. A contrasting shape is visible in the theatre curtain in the background.
Vreeswijk plays with what is real or an illusion, what has depth or is actually flat. Just like in a film or theatre play, anything is possible. The reference to film and theatre is also literally reflected in her paintings by depicting curtains as seen in theatres and movie houses. The exhibition design also reflects this element of her work. Her paintings are presented against the background of a gigantic theatre curtain
During the opening, we will present an essay, which Wouter and the artist wrote about her work.
Installation views
Artist
Mirjam Vreeswijk
Mirjam Vreeswijk's (Gorinchem, NL, 1997) paintings explore the convergence of divergent realities produced in a space between mirror and mask, between revealing and hiding the subject. In doing so, she seeks to draw attention to the different layers of consciousness rippling through the painting’s surface and its subject. Narrative and continuity become illusory in this hybrid space, as each work contains new perspectives that combine opposites and defy easy coherency. The work originates from collages of objects or images that appeal to her in one way or another. For example, shiny ribbons, designer shoes and pictures from books on decorative works from the 70s. From this archive of materials, she intuitively builds compositions, first in models, then on canvas. Step by step, Mirjam looks at what the image needs in order to eventually arrive at the perfect composition and perfect structures of paint. This intuitive or subconscious approach gives the paintings a surrealistic feel that touches on elements of product photography, still life and landscape painting. In her latest series the fairy-tale world makes its entrance. This can be seen in ritual objects and in the approach to landscapes that some of the paintings provide a glimpse of. After graduating in 2018 from the HKU Bachelor of Fine Art, Mirjam Vreeswijk was nominated for several awards such as the Buning Brongers Prize and the Kunst aan de dijk Prize, she won the Best of Graduates Ron Mandos Public Prize that year. She then participated in the Master Fine Art at the Frank Mohr Institute. In 2019, she was named Art Talent of the Year by Stichting Kunstweek. She has exhibited in several galleries and at Kunstcollectie Rijnstate.
More about Mirjam Vreeswijk →