This Art Fair 2018
From the 27th until the 30th of December we'll take part at the This Art Fair in Amsterdam. During This Art Fair, more than 80 individual visual artists will present their work. In addition, they invited a number of established and up-and-coming galleries to present talented artists. Root is pleased to be a part of it! The fair will take place in the Beurs van Berlage (Damrak 243, Amsterdam). During the fair we'll represent the artworks of Lisette Schumacher, Donald Schenkel and Jochem Esser.
Lisette Schumacher's practice revolves around painting. Experimenting with different unexpected tools she works methodically using self-devised painting systems and techniques. Schumacher's paintings are about the elapsing of time and light and how memories can influence your experience. Her interest in architecture is often visible.Journeys to extraordinary locations, their history of use and track marks are the focus of attention.
Since recently Schumacher started to do extensive research on the designs of Le Corbusier. On account of her visit or stay in a building she takes the lighting effect as reference point for new work. Her latest series is The Unité d'Habitation (la cité radieuse), named after a housing estate designed by Le Corbusier together with architect and painter Nadir Afonso. This residential housing is an impressive building to look at. It is constructed in béton brut, rough-cast concrete. Apart from that, this building is enormous, standing loose from the ground on pillars. Its walls are covered with meticulous wall reliefs showing the 'Modulor', which Le Corbusier formulated as a scale of proportions derived from the height of a man with his arm raised. He used it as a system to set out this and other buildings. For this series Schumacher used the concrete colour of the exterior of the building and the dark shadows from the Modulor reliefs on the walls seen when walking past the building.
Donald Schenkel creates subtle gradients with oil paints. He seeks for smoothness in color transitions that can lead the eye into the faraway. Sometimes these colors flash purely from the canvas, at other times they are diluted into darkening twilights. Diverse surfaces like glass or canvas carry layers of paint in distinctive ways, giving rise to an ever-greater sense of depth or translucent lightness.
During This Art Fair Schenkel will present some of his latest works around his theme Containing Depth. This is where all elements intersect: paint, glass, the sculptural, depth and shape. Geometrical shapes are painted in front of others, hover on a transparent surface or are pointed out by the form of a sculpture. Each shape forms the boundaries of a gradient, containing the endless.
Especially darker blues and greens reach depth through the accumulation of paint. Oil paints can appear like glass or lacquer, containing pigments of chemicals or earth metals into a mass of oil. This led to his use of glass and perspex. Their transparency makes the materiality of the ‘canvas’ paramount as it resonates with the lacquer like appearance of oils.
Jochem Esser's work arises from the urge of understanding things by taking them apart and reconstructing them. Because modern technology has a tendency towards ubiquity, it becomes harder to tell what is technological and what is not. What is an interface and what is the real world? In his work, he deconstructs and reconstructs devices, releasing them from their functional purpose and letting them just be what they are: arranged materials conducting a dynamic process.
During the fair Esser will present an installation from the Stasis series. Stasis is the point where a force comes to a static zero point. Also referred to as stable. Within the installation we see plant-like structures, they hang in speakers that do not seem to move. Every now and then a “plant” moves and then returns to a stable state. Suggesting a form of tension build up. Esser also presents some sculptures from the Satelles series. When glazed ceramics come out of a hot oven into colder air, a moment of magic takes place as far as Esser’s concerned. The quick switch in temperatures makes creates tension that makes the material tense up in minuscule movements. These movements cause a subtle ticking sound, as if the materials are alive for a brief moment and they’re complaining about the cold.
We hope to welcome you at This Art Fair! Read more about This Art Fair on their website.