NOTHING COMES FROM NOTHING

2013-2017

NOTHING COMES FROM NOTHING is a series of paintings that focus on the embodied experience of works of art. Paper cut-outs on canvases, almost white or almost black, demand a highly observant approach from the viewer. Only by being physically present in front of the canvas and looking attentively can one’s eyes distinguish the subtle differences in colour and pattern. A quick glance does not reveal the full range of tonalities. You have to keep moving and rethinking your approach to the work. Gradations in colour, nuances in form: materiality is clearly important here, as in the previous series TYPOLOGY OF AN IDEAL LANDSCAPE. Recognisable representations disappear, but what remains is the act of collage – the bringing together of paper cuttings into abstracted representations with titles such as TO EVERY THING THERE IS A SEASON; THE CLOSER THINGS GET TO NON-EXISTENCE; THINGS DEVOLVING TOWARD, OR EVOLVING FROM, NOTHINGNESS. There is no clear position from which to view the picture as a whole. In the publication Discovery of the Well-Known (2013), Margriet Kemper writes: “There is no breadth and no height; source and mountain are united by […] the white of the snow, the off-white of the sand and the black of the night.” The different shades of white, for example, make each other visible – they work together. They invite you to seek out nuance and the context of the painting. The work thus alludes to support, a theme that recurs in multiple works of mine, such as I SUPPORT YOU – YOU SUPPORT ME.