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Color Works, Solids and Models
Michiel van der Zanden (NL)
Artworks:
Michiel van der Zanden
Text:
Leon van den Langenberg
Michiel van der Zanden
Translation:
Michiel Huijben
Design:
Rob van Hoesel
Production:
Unicum (NL)
The amazing visual constructions by Michiel van der Zanden (NL) contain both ironic lightness, as sincere wonderment and are rooted in pop culture, virtual games and the images from his childhood.
Van der Zanden takes his conscious observations of oddities and props in his daily environment into the digital world. Using 3D software, he can examine these observations, magnify and manipulate them.
The 3D renderings serve as sketch material for his paintings. The clear digital traces, combined with a sophisticated painting technique, conduct a magnification and alienation of reality for the second time.
Color Works, Solids and Models is a collection of recent works which is less figurative then his earlier work and provide more room for association. The recurring forms in these works are reminiscent of clay, toothpaste, graffiti or excrement. But strictly speaking it’s paint. Van der Zanden makes his seemingly random paint stacks out of ‘falling’ paint streaks from squeezed tubes. The manner in which the ‘paint sausages’ are stacked then, unmixed, that’s the final image for Van der Zanden. An ode to oil paint.
Michiel van der Zanden is fascinated by the visual language of videogames and 3D graphics. He looks at digital imagery through the eyes of a painter. In the combination of artificiality and realism, he sees a lot of similarities in the way artists have been creating illusions for centuries. And he isn’t just fascinated by games and graphics; it’s also the much broader human need to recreate all possible daily life phenomena. This can be found in children’s toys and amusement parks, model making and advertising. In this marriage of realistic painting and computer generated imagery, Michiel van der Zanden’s work is characterized by a constant interaction between the real and virtual world, between classical painting and the new age of digital imaging. This results in paintings that look like they’ve walked out of a computer program, as well as overly synthetic sculptures and software-based videos. Michiel van der Zanden works and lives in Breda.