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| Hans van Meeuwen | Selected Works Biography Press Release |
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Scraping Skies |
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March 27 - May 31, 2008 |
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Cristinerose Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Scraping Skies,
new sculptures and drawings by Dutch artist Hans van Meeuwen. |
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This new body of work consists of sculptures characterized by the isolation
of anatomical fragments and the unification of the incoherent all linked
by a fantastical perspective. The viewer is induced to wonder about the
anomalies of each element that is different not only in scale but also in
context resulting in new associations as well as absurdity. However, the
absurdity of the works is not absurd anymore when one thinks about the reality
of dreams. The dimensions are off kilter, the perspectives erratic, and
the order of things askew. Each object is rearranged in an inverted world
with a different logic. |
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Through the sculptures and the depiction of objects, animals, and abstract
forms in the drawings, van Meeuwen leads the viewer to the world of memories
and dreams. The transformations in his objects by the memory process are
also intensified by the influence of childhood memories. Memory images are
more childlike in the sense that the object’s size corresponds to
its relevance, not to its size in the physical world. It is in part due
to the different perspective of a child for whom everything seems much larger
than for the full-grown adult. |
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This fun yet ironic body of work examines the ambiguity and the multi-dimensionality
of a child’s existence from the perceptual world of adults. Oversized
legs, miniature guys, and morphing abstract shapes create a magical world
with a touch of irony. |
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Van Meewen’s works are ideal objects for the imagination. They provide
enough stimulus to get the process going but remain vague enough not to
determine its direction. In his world of inversions and fragmentation (without
context or narrative structure) everything is turned upside down, overstretched,
deformed, and taken out of the flow of time. Van Meewen works develop a
spell, an almost mystical, magical state between reality and fiction --
it is personal, witty, weird, and unexpected.
Hans Van Meeuwen was
born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, lived for 15 years in Cologne, Germany
and recently moved to New York. He has shown extensively both in galleries
and museums throughout Germany and the Netherlands. |