Gonny Geurts, the collection

Education: Academy of Arts, Arnhem, Holland

The series of work with which I finished my education in 1992, was a complete minimalism of what I had learned and pursued

Coming from an extensive background in which I mastered several techniques and themes, the process ended in a white painting, where at first glance only a square with a dot in its centre were to be seen. A painting consisting of many layers was covered with white paint. In the wet paint I drew a square with my finger and looked for the centre. After that I repeated the ritual, using a ruler to mark the pure square and the mathematical centre

This painting defined my style for the rest of my life: the mix of the autonomous gesture(perfect freedom) and the legislation (critical observation and application of rules in the art of painting)

No one should be surprised of the influences of Sigmar Polke (Germany), because of his application of linseed oil and gold leaf, and also of Piet Mondriaan (Holland), in the way he represented the essential in horizontal and vertical harmony, while the two extremes met

From a studious tour to Florence, Italy, I brought back the fascination with square monasterycourtyards. On the Caribbean island of Curacao I prepared my own paint with earth pigments (from Terra Cora and Santu Pretu) and Aloe Vera-juice

None of these paintings were conserved

Since 2000 I live and work in my studio “Art and more” in Zeewolde, Holland. A young village in the newest Dutch province called Flevoland, the polderland where I find plenty of room, air and Land-Art

I regularly have expositions of my work in Dutch galleries, and I have also taken part in Landart-projects like “Zeewolderwijds” (floating art), “Tracks” in a nature park (25 metres of my footsteps painted on transparent material above the footpath), “On Sartre” (after studying the works of Sartre, a French author/philosopher) and “The orange painting parade”, in connection with the visit of the Queen of Holland

Sources of inspiration: literature, philosophy, a sentence from a poem, a song, a hazythought that wants to be represented, in other words: life and what life has brought to me. My manner of working developed over time into an easy waiting for what comes up out of chaos (spontaneous forms from paint, material, little drawings). Whatever attracts my attention, whatever fascinates me, will become the main theme of my work. Therefore a painting can have a long history of development, which is visible in the transparent coatings, where every layer has its own sense to be absorbed in. The painting becomes its own intrinsic meaning

Afterwards I know what title it should be given (or none)

The work wants to enrich everyone in every way.Therefore it will be found in private collections, and also in vade-mecums like the “Original Art Collection” (Apeldoorn, Holland) and the “International Artists Lexicon” (Munich, Germany)

Returning to the square and why it became so important to me; it is about personal space and personal limits and boundlessness (indispensable for the artist who wants to explore new areas and find new contents to be expressed in new forms), and at the same time the borders may give safety. For the dot in the centre: that’s me

Or, like the author Milan Kundera expressed:

“There only was so little, so endless little needful to find yourself back on the other side of theborder where beyond nothing yet had sense; love, convinces, belief, history. The whole mystery of human life depended on the fact that it takes place in the very nearness of – and even in directly contact with that border, that is not kilometres separated from it, but hardly a millimetre….”

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