Rezi van Lankveld presents ‘Schelper’ at Petzel

Thu, Jan 19 - Sat, Feb 25  2017

From January 19 until February 25, Petzel Gallery New York presents ‘Schelper’, their third solo exhibition by Dutch artist Rezi van Lankveld. Rezi van Lankveld’s new paintings are transformations of abstract subject and composition. Like her previous works, hints of the visible world emerge from the fluidity of the painted image. However, unlike her earlier duel-toned oil paintings, the new canvases assign a greater role to color. Van Lankveld uses a spectrum of tints, hues and tones to convey a way of seeing that encompasses different aspects of vision. In the paintings, color takes on the physicality of rhythmic form and spatial depth while it simultaneously plays a psychological role that relates to time, movement, sensuality and memory. The paintings appeal to an existential mood as they tangentially align with images of the world that surround us.

The size of the canvases invites an intimacy and immediacy to a reading of these works, situating the viewer between his or her own physical space and an imagined world presented through the image. Painted planes and plateaus emerge as mythical landscapes, organic figurations and improvised narratives. Yet, these images are fragile as van Lankveld employs various degrees of viscous brushed and pooled textures to break any concrete illusion. In other paintings, shapes are anthropomorphized, conveying a sense of having gained a life, just as schelp (Dutch for ‘shell’) becomes personified by van Landveld’s neologism, Schelper.

About Rezi van Lankveld

Rezi van Lankveld lives and works in Amsterdam. She graduated from Jan van Eyck Akademie, Maastricht in 1999. She has shown extensively throughout Europe. Her recent exhibitions include Centro per l’arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato (2013), Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis (2009), Museum van Loon, Amsterdam (2006/2007), GEM Museum Voor Actuele Kunst, Den Haag (2006/2007), Museum Kunst palast, Dusseldorf (2005), Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover (2008), Gemeentemuseum Den Haag (2001), Hedah, Maastrischt (2000). Her work is in the collections of Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam,  The Rabobank Art Collection, The Art Collection of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Zabludowicz Collection, London and New York among others.