ARJEN
IDENTITIES

KÖNIG GALERIE
11 SEPTEMBER – 27 OCTOBER 2024

OPENING
11 SEPTEMBER 2024 | 6 – 8 PM

KÖNIG GALERIE is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Dutch artist Arjen, his first with the gallery. The show is comprised of 8 paintings, drawings on paper, smaller format paintings, and bronze sculptures, which are completely new for the artist.

As a child, Arjen started making copies of the work of the Dutch Masters, such as Rembrandt and Jacob van Ruysdael. Later he discovered the work of earlier modern painters like Pablo Picasso and Salvador Dalí, as well as ethnographic art, which became great inspirations to him. Arjen is fascinated by the fundamental principles of art. Through pictorial analysis, he tries to isolate these principles to then use them in his own works. Though he has an urge to visualize a wide range of figures and feelings, he simultaneously wants his works to be simple and as minimalistic as possible. This desire for simplicity is inspired by the artistic development of Piet Mondrian.

The process usually starts with a sketch, inspired by everyday life or a sudden idea, in which he lets his intuition run freely. Arjen tries to go beyond the concept of deformation. With familiar elements of the human body, geometrically reshaped and sometimes combined with cheerful or sensual elements, he tries to create new entities with their own intrinsic logical structure. In his approach, he leaves behind the normal anatomical structures in order to find new figures without limitations of any kind. Arjen is drawn to modes of pictorial figuration in which an internal, compositional balance is achieved. This spatial equilibrium of forms is an important contrast to the surrealistic figures portrayed, which are anything but immediately recognizable. Arjen reconnects distinguishable parts into unfamiliar combinations, taking what is immediately known or recognizable and making it less so. For example, in NEW PERSPECTIVES, 2024, single eyes protrude like telescopes from the mouths of what looks to be a father and son portrait.

Working closely with the Noack Foundry in Berlin, Arjen brought his ingenuity of combinatory form into three dimensions, creating a series of kneeling, headless figures, whose smooth surfaces and rich patina carry the internal contrasts presented elsewhere in the paintings. Finally, Arjen has included drawings on paper and, for the first time, smaller format paintings. These works are standalone but are also preparatory steps for bigger paintings and give the viewers a glimpse into the wide range of his creative process.