Political or social engagement may be hot items in present day visual art.
It may give a boost to the image of an individual artist, his/her curator or buyer and to his/her bank account,
but how politically or socially engaged can a work of art really be?
Willem Goedegebuure’s (1953) recent paintings which he presently shows at JCA de Kok, could easily be taken for politically inspired works.
But are they?
Indeed they may deal with pictures taken in Iraq or the Crimea, but at the same time they may also represent seemingly common place scenes, painted with the same eloquence.
Goedegebuure isn’t a man of glamour, neither does he make glamorous paintings.
His representations may evoke different feelings with the viewer, puzzled as you are by what you are actually seeing,
why it is the subject of a painting and why it was painted the way it is.
And don’t be misled!
Goedegebuure’s works seem to have been made with the greatest ease.
However, look again and discover they are quite virtuoso paintings, in their technique and in the way they show you the world.
They don’t tell you how to be right or wrong in this world, they just tell.
[Click on the pictures to enlarge]
© Villa Next Door 2017
Content of all pictures courtesy to Willem Goedegebuure and JCA de Kok, Den Haag
Bertus Pieters
Villa Next Door 