Rik Meijers
dal 18/1/2007 al 10/3/2007
Segnalato da
18/1/2007
Rik Meijers
Museum Het Domein, Sittard
Don’t do that any more. The artist will be presenting recent paintings and works, such as painted bottles and polaroids. Fabulous figures still populate his world. It is a domain where martyrs, prophets, mystics and gurus rub shoulder with pin-ups, vagrants, hippies and members of his family.
Don’t do that any more. Paintings, drawings, objects
Don’t do that any more - Dutch artist Rik Meijers presents two years after his last
solo show an overview of his artistic oeuvre in Museum Het Domein. Alongside the
Mystical Portraits that are a recurrent feature in the work, the artist will be
presenting recent paintings and works never previously on public display, such as
painted bottles and polaroids. Here, Meijers is not only referring to low culture
and unpretentious, salt-of-the-earth folk art, but to logos, secularized or not, and
Art Brut. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue / artist book.
Fabulous figures still populate the world of Rik Meijers, (1963), who lives and
works in Sittard. It is a domain where martyrs, prophets, mystics and gurus rub
shoulder with pin-ups, vagrants, hippies and members of his family. The projection
of their images on top of and over each other is the basis of the canvases onto
which paint is literally layered, along with less traditional materials like tar and
feathers, bottlecaps, shards of glass and beads. These collective personalities are
shown in close up and embody alien (de)formations, and the capricious, illogical
impact that reality exercises on the individual. This, however, the artist
accomplishes without adopting a determinist position: the works are impossible to
place in a background or context and elude judgement. For Meijers, representing and
animating his protagonists is what it’s all about. With this, the artist does not
liberate his figures from the margins of society to place them at its centre, but
transports t
he viewer to ‘the edge’ where he or she is suddenly catapulted into the role of
freak, to be feasted upon by myriads of eyes. Meijers literally gives the images
'body' by his use of materials, in particular fashioning faces that have escaped the
margin and surface through the layers to loom suddenly before the viewer. His
paintings are almost exorcisms that evoke images that we intuit, but cannot know.
A catalogue/artist’s book with an introduction by Dominic van den Boogerd
accompanies the exhibition. The book is inspired by fanzines that emanate the same
mood as Meijers’ idiosyncratic choice of themes and materials. During the opening on
Friday 19 January, Rik Meijers will perform with the band Chomain Vasser. This will
be followed in March by a concert evening with Chomain Vasser in the context of the
new events series Sound-Zone organized by Museum Het Domein, and which is devoted to
the connection between the fine arts and pop music, a key aspect of the 2007
exhibition programme.
The T-time (discussion session) for the Rik Meijers exhibition will be held on
Sunday 25 February 2007 from 12.30 - 14.00 h.
Opening Fri 19 Jan 2007, 17.00h
Museum Het Domein Sittard
Kapittelstraat 6 - Sittard