FREUD ME

Matthias Dornfeld & Inka ter Haar

April 15 - May 27, 2023

Brussels

‘One of the many different definitions states that painting is a depiction of surfaces and figures, which, depending on their position, appear smaller or larger. This - admittedly relatively old theoretical approach - is simply the mathematics of perspective. In the paintings of Inka ter Haar, we initially find precisely this examination of the classical components of painting: the relationship between figure and ground. Her paintings are created in the process of a free translation of small-format drawings onto the large surfaces of the canvas. What can be seen are clearly recognizable objects in vibrant colors, which stand out against the monochrome backgrounds of the paintings through clear lines. Her paintings are “inhabited” by everyday objects made and used by people: Chairs, lamps, windows, mattresses, vessels. The human body appears, if at all, as a fragment. The aesthetics of her formal language and the vocabulary of her paintings are recognizable features. Together they create an idiosyncratic painterly char- acteristic. Inka ter Haar paints pictures that are basically as readable as you can decipher this text sentence. Although the laws of perspective seem to be suspended at times and instead of a classical illusionary space her painting emphasizes the illusion of the pictorial space as an optical illusion. The floor sways, the legs are trembling.’ (excerpt of text by Alice Wilke)

The paintings of Matthias Dornfeld are based on his longtime interest in conventional themes, such as portraiture, landscape and still life. Within his interest in particular painting discourses, he not only operates in the tradition of classical pictorial genres, but also generates a visual aesthetic characteristic of earlier approaches to naïve expressive painting. Dornfeld’s work ulti- mately demonstrates that they are more acutely situated in the inventive painting strategies of analytical abstraction. He explains: “The subjects and motives are simple, they come without thinking. They’re stupid, banal, commonplace, clichés.” It is through the repetitive use of the familiar, even boring—both in process and in subject matter—that Dornfeld subverts these painterly tropes and, in turn, makes them strange, makes them funny. (courtesy of Mousse Publishing)

Head of a youth

unknown artists

Germany, early 15th century

16 × 20 × 19 cm (without stand)

Stone (volcanic tuff)