Van Eeden's drawings refer to imagery which predates his birth in 1965. He selects one illustration each day from his eclectic collection of pre '65 printed material and reproduces it in black chalk. He calls this constantly expanding corpus Encyclopaedia of My Death. The subject matter of the work is wide ranging, and draws on images from old magazines such as Life, Paris Match or De Spiegel, photographs of fin-de-siecle interiors, stills from films including Un Chien Andalou, (Luis Bunuel 1928), or a Dior fabric design.
Percy Miller gallery is very pleased to be showing the first U.K. solo exhibition of work by the Dutch artist Marcel van Eeden.
Van Eeden's drawings refer to imagery which predates his birth in 1965. He selects one illustration each day from his eclectic collection of pre '65 printed material and reproduces it in black chalk. He calls this constantly expanding corpus Encyclopaedia of My Death. The subject matter of the work is wide ranging, and draws on images from old magazines such as Life, Paris Match or De Spiegel, photographs of fin-de-siècle interiors, stills from films including Un Chien Andalou, (Luis Buñuel 1928), or a Dior fabric design. Through this process of appropriation he makes the images his own but it is also an obsessive attempt by Van Eeden to recreate a world he never occupied. He says 'when you copy a photo, it's like walking around inside it. (...) Having to examine it so carefully in order to copy it brings you close to the moment at which the photo was taken..'
A 230 page book with over 2000 illustrations, published by Verlag für moderne Kunst Nürnberg, will have its official UK launch at the exhibition.
Marcel van Eeden’s major 2003 exhibition Drawings 1993-2003, organised by GEM, museum voor actuele kunst, The Hague, has subsequently travelled to Centro Galego de Arte Contemporánea, Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and Institut Neerlandais, Paris. In July Van Eeden will be having a solo show at Museum Franz Gertsch, Burgdorf, Switzerland.
With thanks to the Royal Netherlands Embassy.
Percy Miller Gallery
39 Snowsfields SE1 3SU
London