Bas van den Hurk
The circus is in town, 2016
Silkscreen, oil paint and powder pigment on silk in artist Plexi-box frame
46 × 63 × 2 cm
Unique painting, in a series of 10
For this series, Bas van den Hurk started with one large piece of silk. He proceeded to wrinkle the material and printed a pattern on it – based on the famous image of the Pierrot-Éclair costume designed by modernist artist Sonia Delaunay for the 1926 film Le P’tit Parigot. Next, van den Hurk cut the silk in pieces, individually stretched it on frames and painted on them, using oil paint and powder pigment. Finally, he mounted the painted silk in ten plexiglass cases.
Sonia Delaunay is not the only artist whose work echoes through this series. Other images have had a prominent place in van den Hurk’s studio while working on this series. Amongst them is Picasso’s painting for the United Nations in Paris, as well as images from Richard Aldrich and Raoul De Keyser. While working, Bas van den Hurk always listens to music, and elements of these songs often find their way into his work. The title of this edition is a line from Bob Dylan’s Desolation Row.
This edition consists of ten unique paintings on draped silk, individually framed in plexiglass cases. The artist likes how the very rigid form of the plastic case opposes the organic shape of the roughly cut un-stretched silk. At the same time, the reflective character of the plexi is a continuation of the reflection of light on the silk. This presents painting as a medium that is open to movement and not static, how it is often perceived.
