artist
artist
Esther Tielemans
Two enormous billboards: one big painted landscape, one glossy monochrome, the park and yourself in between. Different worlds meet, reality and fiction fuse.
Against the backdrop of a beautiful part of the Beatrixpark a panel is placed showing the artistic depiction of it. A reconstructed version in front of the original.
A similarly sized monochrome is placed at an angle across it, in which the park and the painted reproduction of it fuse. In this attractive hybrid nature suddenly appears the viewer himself, as if it were a dream, a mix of reality and fantasy. For a moment the viewer plays a part in the illusion Tielemans is holding up for him and creates his own virtual reality in the artwork.
Esther Tielemans paints idyllic landscapes which are reminiscent of paradise, but at the same time hint at the opposite. Black surfaces, grey spots and menacing shades contrast with colourful and voluptuous landscapes where plants grow and bloom excessively. Her work has monumental proportions: they form walls which capture the viewer in these worlds.
The materials she uses are enticing as well: she covers acrylic paint with epoxy and thick layers of varnish that make the surface smooth and reflective. Instead of canvas she works on multiplex. Her object-like paintings made on and with industrial materials appear to float in space.
Different worlds meet in her work, figurative and organic elements meet abstract, almost brute pencil strokes and stripes, fine painterly elements contrast with graphic elements, natural with artificial.
Esther Tielemans (1976) won the Prix de Rome in 2005
www.esthertielemans.com
