current exhibition
Face to Face
Frank Van den Broeck, Tobias Gerber, Diederik Gerlach
Jos de l'Orme, Ronald Versloot, Justin Wijers
drawings, work on paper, woodcuts
29 August through 26 September 2010
In Face to Face attention is paid to portraits and faces in the widest sense of the word. Jos de l' Orme (1962), who exclusively makes woodcuts, often uses portraits in his work. In the exhibition he shows portraits of people, but also of the massive head of a wolf giving the observer an unfathomable look. In the work of Frank van den Broeck (1950) portraits also recur regularly. Frequently these mask-like faces have subtle, fine features or, on the contrary, they are demonic and intense. Usually they float in the surface without any further indication of a body, which makes them even more mysterious. In the work of Ronald Versloot (1965) often something is hidden in the portrait, the top of a young woman's broad-rimmed hat turns out to consist of brains or the wrinkles in a man's forehead have been literally scratched in the paper.
In the work of Diederik Gerlach (1956) there are no direct portraits. By means of a vague indication of a mountain landscape or a German half-timbered house Gerlach evokes the atmosphere of a holiday brochure from the fifties. In the foreground he placed a woman. Thus he creates a portrait in the wider sense of the word, in which environment and figure have been reduced to their characteristics. Tobias Gerber (1961) shows portraits in a roundabout way. For instance, you are looking at the back of a woman who is painting a self-portrait in a studio, her face is visible in the small round mirror held by her. In the drawing ‘Viert' (foursome) you see a driver and substitute driver in a car, who are both looking back at the two women in the back seat who are only just visible in profile. With much attention to detail Justin Wijers (1981) draws the faces of people who were killed in an accident or through acts of violence. He partly fills in the faces with texts and miniatures of plants, animals or pictograms in attractive colours. In this way the observer is tempted to look at the drawing from close by, as a result of which it takes a while before the grim reality of the representation dawns on you.