WHEN : 27th April – 11th May
WHERE : Spiro Grace Art Rooms
Jan Van Dijk’s paintings explore the absurdity of human kind through explorations into gritty characters and humorous narratives in paint. His paintings move beyond the real and exist in a realm where the work is more about the futility and frailty of human kind, rather than the sentimental rendering of individuals. Van Dijk’s human representations are concentrated compositions of a convergent moment in time. In his work he occupies a concentrated part of the picture plane, displaying characters and scenes made from balls of energetic brush work and paint application. His paintings depict unexpected moments of narrative, and give rise to extraordinary flights of fancy.
Van Dijk’s recent work explores the constructed and scaffolded, rickety landscapes that are a testament to the builders and operators of rollercoasters; the marshals of wonder and the architects of absurdity. His latest paintings are the assembled bones of theme parks that need no comparison to the clickety-clack gravity-assisted passage of everyday life. As Van Dijk says, ‘’Take the Detour Deluxe! Thrill of all thrills.’’
