Paul Sietsema Villa Paloma's Project Room
Paul Sietsema,
At the hour of Tea, 2013
still from 16mm film
© Paul Sietsema
Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery
For this exhibition, Paul Sietsema has produced seven new works.
Paul Sietsema takes from secondary sources in his two-dimensional works and films, revisiting the mechanisms involved in the transmission of knowledge. The objects he chooses to reproduce make it possible for him to explore the ambiguous relationship between the material and the imagery that permeate our way of understanding history and culture. And indeed they come from the most diverse areas of knowledge.
The moment of actual creation is key. Sietsema’s works are the outcome of specific processes that he formulates and puts into practice in his studio. This is a place of constant inspiration and concentration, allowing him to reflect on what it means to make art and on the instruments, both metaphorical and concrete, needed to achieve it. In a constant flow of media and materials, Sietsema brings into question the idea of reproduction. His enamel paintings that portray tools in a hyperrealistic manner, for example, are made by pouring enamel onto the objects and then taking digital photos of them. The digital image of each object is then impression-transferred onto a new support (often canvas), and then painted. Here Sietsema uses enamel again, in order to emphasise the resonances and dissonance between object and image. The subjects he chooses often directly or indirectly convey the idea that the work of art today is naturally included in, and perceived as part of, an economic system. This means that a precise monetary value can be attributed to the very act of painting (we see a recurrent use of coins). This theme also underpins his newspaper drawings, which start out from saved newspapers. From them, he replicated pages related to the socio-economic sphere. Newspaper is also seen as a context where private situations are made publicly visible through two-dimensional and linguistic representation.
Concurrently with the Project Room, the Video Room will present At the hour of tea, 2013
This work presents a sequence of arranged objects of the type commonly seen on a desktop. With this film Sietsema brings the tools of the study or office together with objects of contemplation often found there, overlaying time periods within the perceptual matrix of a workstation.
Curators : Eva Fabbris and Cristiano Raimondi
