Juxtapoz Journal – Lotte Keijzer and Michael Polakowski Go Close to/FAR in Belgium

Oever Gallery is glad to announce their upcoming duo exhibition NEAR/FAR, with artists Lotte Keijzer and Michael Polakowski. NEAR/FAR speaks to the distinction between the chosen topics of each artists as Lottes work are about meals and every part that has to do with the topic. Michaels work then again is in regards to the distinction between shut up, intimate scenes and much off landscapes and road views.

The title additionally references the bodily distance of each artists to the gallery, which is sort of “NEAR” for Lotte Keijzer, who lives in Haarlem, The Netherlands and fairly “FAR” for Michael Polakwoski who lives and works in Detroit, USA.

We’ve paired them collectively for a duo present as a result of we consider they may carry one another to a different stage. They each paint lifelike and really colourful work however very completely different of their strategies and kinds. Michaels work are very evenly painted, the place as Lotte makes use of extra textures.

For this physique of labor, Lotte Keijzer has been impressed by a subject she completely loves – meals and something associated to meals. This contains the precise eats one consumes but in addition the setup, pre- paration, cookery, and something even remotely surrounding delicacies (like doing the dishes). The pictures she works with for the duo present Close to/Far with Michael Polakowski are depictions of easy each day affairs seen by way of a passionate focus of a kitchen aficionado. Due to this fact, they’re dished up by way of a flamboyant approach that elevates them to seem splendid, and nontri- vial. Garnished with a beneficiant sprinkle of comedy they’re unpretentious and easy however nonetheless include a slight chunk of enigma or paradox. Though stylised and diminished from their precise look, it’s the noticeable tactile textures (sand used within the paint of the fries, thick bits of pasta floating round within the dishwater) that take away these visuals from the flatness of the canvas floor, bringing them nearer to their multidimensional actuality. That, together with an nearly absurd vivid pigmentation and shocking, exaggerated coloration shifts, transforms the customarily uninteresting, mundane actions into playful festivity-like micro scenes of on a regular basis pleasure and oftentimes, fiasco.

To Michael, this mission was the proper alternative to take a step again and re- flect from a distance on town that has impressed him for the previous decade of his profession. “It’s like carefully one thing from a distance whereas being quite removed from the factor you’re looking carefully at,” he says.