RONALD OPHUIS (1968, NL)

from Mixed Feelings - Group show - Preview - Excl

Ronald Ophuis is a painter, who’s paintings uphold a tension between attraction and repulsion: they contain beauty but cause a shudder at the same time. With his distinctive paint treatment and meticulous compositions, Ophuis strategically makes use of that which the medium and aesthetics of oil painting offer him. Yet the subjects of his choosing are usually confrontational, asking the viewer to take a stance on what is depicted. Through the power of painting, Ophuis challenges the viewer to relate to the content of the work.

In his latest work, the artist takes on the alienation felt between humankind, animals and the environment. He does so by painting the things that come most natural to us, as human beings.

This resulted in Young Goat (2023) and Flowers (2018–2023). Ophuis depicts a change and puts these subjects precedently in the past, to transform them into a disappearing archetype that stimulate questions concerning our relationship towards these subjects. One could ask, what is still left of our one-on-one connection to animals and the natural environment, outside of contemporary farms and technology driven companies?

Flowers, 2015-2023

Oil on canvas

50 x 40 cm

MANDY FRANCA (1989, NL)

Mandy Franca is a multidisciplinary artist, who subverts and challenges the traditional application of printmaking by experimenting with a range of artistic mediums which intersect painting, photography, print, drawing, collage, video, sculpture and installation. The photographic image, made with her smartphone, and mark making are recurring elements, through which she explores experimental forms of print.

Her research encompasses the influence of the digital realm on artifacts, mundanity and the influence of migration. Drawing from life experiences which are informed by growing up in a cross– cultural environment, Franca looks at contemporary artifacts in the broadest sense of the word; personal archives, images, memes, emojis, photographs, videos, audio etc. Working through different media, Franca explores the continuous circulation of these artifacts, both online and offline, their interconnectedness and the desire to slow the experience of time – to better preserve important moments and places in memory.

The presented artwork is part of the series An Area of Land Dominated by Trees , where Franca draws inspiration from the opening sentence of Wikipedia’s description of a “Forest”.

In Fluttering Leaves Make the Wind Blow I , she examines diverse realities and forms of intelligence that extend beyond humanity, encompassing contemporary technology and the natural world in a more-than-human context. The application of layering in her work is to display the complexity that makes up the present. With these techniques Franca wants to challenge ideas of digital materiality, painting and the reproductive image.

NOOR NUYTEN (1986, NL)

Noor Nuyten creates conceptual works that appeal strongly to the imagination of the viewer. Nuyten is artistically akin to the movement of conceptual artists from the late 1960’s, however at the same time her work is undeniably contemporary.

While scrolling on your smartphone a cosmic ray can strike the Earth’s atmosphere, creating cascades of subatomic particles including energetic neutrons, muons and pions, beating your screen to create a bitflip, manifesting in a glitchy phone. Without realizing it, you have experienced a cosmic ray attack, creating a bitflip in your smartphone. In the future, cosmic bit flipping will happen more often because processors become smaller and more energy efficient.

For Gazing Bitflips (2023) Nuyten started to detect and collect bitflips with a smartphone turned into a pocket detector, discovering lit pixels caused by cosmic rays on a daily basis. It is a first attempt to get bitflips off the screen, by melting and solidifying the exact moment of a cosmic strike on a smartphone. The outcome reminds one of a dazzling galaxy; the home of the cosmic rays. Providing us with an interesting insight in the overlap of the physical and the digital.

This new body of work is made of shredded, melted and pressed production waste of Dutch designer Joris Laarman and e– waste, developed in collaboration with Stefania Petroula and circular company van Plestik. In imagining a transition towards more liveable futures, inspired by thinkers like Donna Haraway, Nuyten believes in the power of rethinking materials. By blending used materials, mundane objects and gestures, her aim is to spark the imagination of the viewer, evoking new thoughts, questions and realities.

Noor Nuyten

Gazing Bitflips - 14:55, 2022

Shredded, melted and pressed e-waste and production waste of Dutch designer Joris Laarman

Framed

90 x 70 cm

Unique piece

Noor Nuyten

Gazing Bitflips - 00:05, 2022

Shredded, melted and pressed e-waste and production waste of Dutch designer Joris Laarman

Framed

90 x 70 cm

Unique piece

Less they touch the ground and more they decide for it, 2023

Digital print on canvas

100 x 150 cm

Unique piece

KÉVIN BRAY (1989, FR)

Kévin Bray is a French interdisciplinary artist, who was initially trained as a graphic designer and quickly cultivated his practice as an independent artist within the contemporary art arena.

Bray moves across various disciplines and mediums with ease, overstepping their boundaries and intents. A large part of Bray’s practice revolves around the creation of paintings and the continual evolution of his video Morpher (2018 – ongoing).

Logically, through his work process, experimentation with tools plays a large role, pushing them towards a state of crisis. Bray is conscious of the authority (technological) tools have, in terms of creating interdependency between the user and the tool, as creating similar cycles of production between users. Bray tries to break out of these dogmatic cycles that start to determine methods of creation. By always looking for ways to confront and create new narratives, he aims to open and diversify language while pushing the edges of its possibilities. Due to this reflective yet productive approach, Bray provides us with an efficient and sustainable way of image making that gives us insight in the manufacturability of life in general.

For this exhibition Kévin Bray created two digital paintings titled It is commodifying the depth for the growth of others (2023) and Less they touch the ground and more they decide for it (2023), in which he collects and layers historical narratives that still resonate today as insights to our present day challenges. He tries to simultaneously draw from knowledge situated in historical and traditional artistry, for example trompe l’oeil , as well as techniques of our contemporary image–making industry and popular culture. The outcome is a complex collage that sits somewhere in–between a traditional painting, an AI generated image and a 3D sculpture.

Kévin Bray

It is commodifying the depth for the growth of others, 2023

Digital print on canvas

120 x 110 cm

Unique piece

HARM VAN DEN DORPEL 1981, NL)

H arm van den Dorpel is an artist who continuously seeks to discover emergent aesthetics by composing software and language. With a background in computer science, he often brings elements of advanced mathematics and other scientific fields into his practice. Van den Dorpel engages with diverse materials and forms, including works on paper, sculpture, computer–generated graphics, and software, through which the works are continuously evolving, informed by feedback loops and the design of algorithmic systems.

His newest NFT project, is a commissioned work by car brand Mercedes–Benz, called Maschine Here, van den Dorpel chose motion, velocity, and perception as core themes. Each unique artwork depicts a mesmerizing radial pattern of complex and constantly changing illusions that occur when certain objects spin and accelerate. The artist created and trained a neural network to identify and select generated outputs in line with his own artistic preferences. Even though van den Dorpel is experienced in utilizing A.I. in his work, employing both a custom neural network and creating an entirely 3–dimensional image is a first for him.

Movements such as the Futurists or the Vorticists, inspired by early technological advances in the 20th century, embraced a one– zsided approach, believing in the capacity for technology to liberate. Van den Dorpel, however, views technology as something that may as well move us forward, but it may also move us backward, perhaps even at the same time. These seemingly contradictory forces are something he animates through his work.

Harm van den Dorpel

Maschine7, 2023

Handconfigured generative and interactive animation, NFT (excl. hardware)

Variable dimensions

Unique piece from a series of 1000, token #7/1000

Watch Maschine7 in movement here

Harm van den Dorpel

Maschine5, 2023

Handconfigured generative and interactive animation, NFT (excl. hardware)

Variable dimensions

Unique piece from a series of 1000, token #5/1000

Watch Maschine5 in movement here

MARC BIJL (1970, NL)

Marc Bijl is a highly versatile artist, who switches as effortlessly between political activity and street culture as he does between the media of image, text and music. He researches, questions and criticizes global themes such as political power, globalization of the economy and nationalism.

In his latest works, Bijl hints at the crises from the 1980s. The artist notes that this was a time of large uncertainty and dystopian predictions of what the future holds. The fantasies of the future around that time, think George Orwells’ 1984, were determined by the Cold War, and the worldwide tension in general. In response, Bijl states that at least the soundtrack to this dystopia was great. This juxtaposition comes back in his work, as he often refers to (musical) periods at large, wherein he then highlights the doom and gloom of the particular.

In OFF WORLD (2022) and Together in electric dreams (2022), two slightly mysterious works, the old and new come together in a smooth industrial and digital finish. Some might connect it to the Vaporwave genre, which, much like Bijl’s interest and methodology, is characterized by 1980s and 1990s subculture, as well as the both surrealist and sarcastic perspective on popular culture and consumerism. The work generates feelings that are both forward–thinking, and simultaneously, nostalgic. Bijl’s retro–futurism explores the tension between past and future, between the alienating and empowering effects of technology.

Marc Bijl

OFF WORLD, 2022

Powder coating and digital print on aluminium

70 x 100 cm

Unique piece