Arjan van Helmond

Chung King Project is pleased to announce Arjan van Helmond's first solo exhibition in the US. Van Helmond (b. Netherlands, 1971), paints views of interior spaces and landscapes in acrylic and gouache on paper. They are scenes which suggest narrative interpretation, which resonate with the presence of people, but which stand empty.

Arjan van Helmond paints onto paper with acrylic, gouache watercolour and ink, and uses each medium with an acute control of its properties: a surface breaks to reveal conflicting underpainting; the gentle seep of watercolour or ink jars harshly with the blank opacity of an area of gouache. The scenes he chooses are often domestic or architectural, buildings which in their very structure, or in the decorative details which define their surfaces, bear signs of habitation, but stand invariably deserted.

Van Helmond works from photographs, and his working process consists in effecting subtle changes to each image until it takes on an element of the strange or the uncanny. Many of his subjects appear fragile, they have a clear origin in reality but have been pushed away from the realm of the real to occupy something like the realm of the dream.

For this, his first exhibition in the U.S., van Helmond will show a series of new works, both large and small in scale, which represent architectural interiors and landscape compositions. Running through the series is a sense of foreboding, a gothic sensitivity which makes reference to filmic as well as photographic influences.

Arjan van Helmond lives and works in Amsterdam. He studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam and the Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht and in 2004 completed a residency at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam. Exhibitions include The Painter of Modern Life at the Museum de Pavilijoens, Almere, the Netherlands, Unfortunately last Sunday afternoon somebody left the door open... Museum Het Domein, Sittard, NL, A pallid house W139, Amsterdam, NL, and Don’t be a Stranger, Galerie Juliette Jongma, Amsterdam. His work is represented in the collections of ABN Amro, De Nederlansche Bank, Akzo Nobel, the Saatchi Collection, KPN, and in private collections throughout Europe.

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Arjan van Helmond
THE CRYSTAL WORLD