Gijs Milius
Tieten
2019
Wasco chalk on paper
32,5 × 39 cm
Unique drawing in a series of 5 variations, signed by the artist
Out of stock
about this work
Coinciding with his commission for our public project A Temporary Monument for Brussels, Gijs Milius made a special set of wasco chalk drawings for artlead. The series is a play on the joke that the internet was invented to spread photographs of breasts and kittens. Titled after a Dutch slang word for breasts, each drawing shows one pair of female breasts. In true Milius tradition, the drawings are attractive in their use of colour and formal visual language while at the same time radiating a certain unease. The breasts in this series are large – maybe too large; they are veiny and uneven; they look like they are about to burst. Looking at these drawing might make you uncomfortable, but you can’t look away.
This drawing comes framed in a mouse-grey, custom-made Mertens frame.
about Gijs Milius
The practice of Gijs Milius covers drawings and paintings, as well as video, temporary installations, and audio works. Many of his works focus on meeting and exchanging ideas, although the final form of the work can be very diverse. In 2015, Gijs Milius made a series of large portraits of people with whom he regularly exchanges ideas about his own work. In 2016, he set up an intervention in the basement of the Brussels art space Etablissement d’en Face, where he presented six ceramic ashtrays – each with its own user. The six – paid – smokers worked in shifts so that during the two-day performance at least three people were present to sit, talk and smoke.
Milius is also particularly interested in the interaction between a figure and its surroundings. This interaction could take the form of our daily relationship to our city, as well as being a spectator in an exhibition space, or the characters in his works and the imaginary space in which they find themselves. This idea again results in very diverse works, ranging from temporary installations in the urban public space, to strange sculptures in exhibition contexts, to drawings in oil pastels of landscapes and chambers – sometimes featuring characters who seem to be painfully aware of the unnatural nature of their surroundings. Indeed, although these drawings are particularly attractive in their use of colour and formal visual language, they always radiate a certain unease. There seems to be some undefined twist that inevitably makes the spectator uncomfortable.
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