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19 February - 19 March 2005
Theo Kuijpers
Paintings
opening Saturday 19 February 16-18 pm
wednesday - saturday 12-17 pm
1st Sunday of the month 14-17 pm
Theo Kuijpers (Helmond, 1939) has studied commercial design at the Academy for Industrial Design of Eindhoven.
At first his travels to a.o. Suriname (in the West Indies) and Morocco were a major inspiration, as was the then popular "material painting" (with its protagonists Dubuffet, Tapiés and Dutch artist Jaap Wagemaker).
Around 1972 his agrarian background, with its roots in the southern Dutch province of Noord-Brabant become the subject matter of Kuijpers' new work.
Partly influenced by the German "Spurensicherung" movement (the unveiling and recycling of earlier traces of civilization, a forerunner as it were of the more recent appropriation art) he begins to construct assemblages out of objects and materials related to farming, such as pig bladder, worn lead and weather cloth.
During a visit to Australia (1979), where he has gone to work with a famous Dutch litho printer, he develops an interest in Aboriginal Art, incorporating its motives into his work.
Shortly afterwards, a half year's stay in New York with the help of a Dutch Government grant at the legendary Studio PS One enables him to closely survey the masters of abstract expressionism and colourfield painting.
But his own intuition will always play a major part in Kuijpers' work. This goes as much for the assemblages that he made up to the 1980's as for his color lithographs and his present paintings. And he has never lost his early affection for material art.
"Right now I'm working purely with paint. I only dilute it with terpentine. I do paint on tent canvas, with its beautiful ribs and frills. A virginal surface, as in a regular canvas, is quite a problem for me. Because the canvas of a tent is so attractive in itself I first paint it white, so that all that remains is the structure. Then I can start with the painting."
Theo Kuijpers works >>
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