Robert Zandvliet - Stage of Being

We are pleased to announce the second solo exhibition of Dutch artist Robert Zandvliet at the gallery. The exhibition will feature works from the Stage of Being and Crucifix series.

A small painting from 2014 served as the initial impulse for the Stage of Being series. Despite its modest size of just 30 x 40 cm, it possesses an extraordinary presence. The composition reflects simplicity and symmetry. A wide, slightly curved screen stands out in radiant yellow against the dark violet background of the surrounding space. In the center, a diffuse shape in the same violet divides the screen into two parts.

An opening was my first association, which a second later transformed into the contours of a human figure in front of a screen. Depending on how my eyes interpreted what I perceived, the silhouette-like figure could either be present or absent, shifting from background to foreground, from space to matter.

Three years later, Zandvliet revisited the motif, formally and visually incorporating it into Stage of Being. The gently curved screen extends across the approximately four-meter-wide canvases. The human figure in the center has been further simplified and reduced to an elongated archetype. With these two pictorial elements, Zandvliet has painted seven canvases in which the motif manifests in very different ways, both visually and emotionally. In each painting, the screen and figure engage in a different relationship, a connection that is evident not only in the subtle compositional differences but also in the structure of the color surface, the character of the brushstrokes, and the intensity and tonal quality of the colors.

“For me, painting revolves around three things: 1. Paint materials, 2. Representation, 3. Spirit.

The spirit is the soul of the painting, its inherent power. It is the added value that eludes direct perception. In a good painting, this spirit is always present, but a painter can hardly control it.”

With Stage of Being, the theme that has occupied Zandvliet for over twenty years takes a new direction. The desire to delve into the essence of painting and reinvent it has been his primary driving force since his years at the art academy. Even at that early stage, Zandvliet was captivated by the magic of the medium. “I wanted to understand it so badly, but I couldn't grasp it. I simply wanted to discover what the magic of painting consists of.”

In the gray area where abstraction meets representation, Zandvliet has explored various aspects of painting over the years with his characteristic systematic and analytical approach. Drawing freely from the traditions of painting, he has chosen motifs and genres, as well as specific works by other artists, as starting points for his quest to understand what painting can achieve. Alongside an extremely diverse and rich oeuvre, answers have also crystallized. “I now know much more, but the magic remains. I continue to have more questions.”

Until now, the human figure has been notably absent from Zandvliet's oeuvre. Concerned that he might overwhelm this motif—with all its narrative and emotional connotations—with personal anecdotes, he had always avoided it. Gradually, this is changing. In the past two years, parts of the human body, such as the hand and the eye, have already been the subject of his paintings. Now, he expands this in the Stage of Being series with a shadowy representation of humanity and in the Crucifix series with the image of Christ.

Robert Zandvliet was born in 1972 in Terband (Holland) and lives and works in Haarlem. He is one of the most established Dutch artists. His works are part of renowned international private, corporate, and museum collections.