Where are you from?
The answers to this question started to preoccupy society as globalisation succeeded. It is so easy to move, to work in different places, to live wherever you fancy, that the generic inquiry of "where are you from?" is becoming irrelevant, and, in some cases, even impossible to answer.
In this exhibition, Villa del Arte Galleries Amsterdam aims to explore the concept of origin. To what extent does our origin define us? do we perhaps need a new definition for it? is all of this confusion pushing us to find our roots, where everything began?
Jon Errazu, Scott Naismith and Ron Mills represent their own idea of origin in their paintings. Together, they allude to different perspectives on how to look at the concept of origin. The viewer is being challenged, what should be modified in its definition? should we leave some characteristics out, or include more?
Jon Errazu's series "Black Mountains" is inspired in his homeland in the Basque Country, in the north of Spain. In this region, mountains are constantly at one's sight, skies are rather grey and there is a characteristic foggy accompanied by a drizzle that locals call "xirimiri". The beauty and almost mystic feeling of this landscape is well captured and reflected in Errazu's canvases. These are 'his' origins.
Scott Naismith is inspired by the fields in Scotland, using colour as a tool to express the positivity and optimism he feels at home. With this, he invites us to reflect on emotions as origins, instead of birthplace. "Home" or, the place one comes from might, in the end, just be a comfortable and familiar feeling. Naismith work encourages the viewer to be curious, to ask themselves more questions. In this case, one ends up wondering about the relationship between the concept "home" and "origins".
With a broader perspective of the term "origin", Ron Mills goes back to the very beginning of everything. His abstract compositions bring one back to the randomly organised universe, or are they perhaps close-up images of cells? or, one could think, abstractions of the sea and mountains? In one way or another, the artist appeals to the essence of nature, where one could say that everything began.
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