The Breeze, The Embodiment of Water

Tom van Veen, who has participated in Martch Studio’s artist in residency program located in Ayvalık for the period of September-November 2021, will meet the audience with his exhibition prepared during this process between the dates November 6 - December 4, 2021 at Martch Art Project. Van Veen’s major player is painting, but can also arise in a range of media such as performance, narrative texts and sculpture/decor. A recurring theme of his output features contemporary icons, collective memory and the interconnectedness. Van Veen’s paintings, all rendered in oil paint, depict young people standing either just starting, out of movement or in a freeze. In an interplay of certain colors showing a harsh light that absorbs everything and fades certain shades. Within the exhibition ‘the breeze, the embodiment of water’ the shadows or persons occurring in the paintings are depicted in artificial light, both neon as well as the white TL. It says something about our gaze towards nature or our surrounding. “The make-able world” who’s on its end. Like Bruno Latour talks in Face à Gaïa, 2017, about the static landscape, which has become fluid in the last couple of years. Not any longer we are this small creature in a overwhelming sublime nature, but the giant crushing it. The paintings appear digitally as snapshots when standing in front of them, but Van Veen attaches importance to the paint, brush stroke, surface and believe that when seen in real life they are more likely to give an experience of delay inherent in painting. The viewer, in this case, will feel the time it took to create the image.

Tom Van Veen

06.11.2021 - 04.12.2021