 Roq La Rue is very pleased to present a exhibit by two exceedingly talented and visionary painters, Femke Hiemstra and Travis Louie. (Amsterdam) meticulously tight, jewel like mixed
media paintings are homes to a dark, lush fairytale
land where inanimate objects come to life and frolic with animal
neighbors. Gingerbread men hunt for elusive confections, persian cats
attended by moths smoke opium pipes, and flowers extract their revenge
on insect tormenters. Femke uses typography in her work, using words
and phrases from various languages and letters in her paintings to
further enhance the narrative while still retaining a playful sense of
mystery, or as a visual device to frame in the scenery, as if you were
looking at her world through a secret window. Drawing from a range of
influences, from firework wrappers to Japanese woodblock prints,
Femke’s use of both pop culture detritus and child-like fantasy create
a vibrant playground for the imagination, with each piece looking like
a cover for a fantastical adventure book, which is left up to the
viewer to imagine the story inside. She will be exhibiting 12 original
paintings and several drawings. The
patterns that swirl around each piece are often taken from wallpaper
patterns or decorated fabrics from his childhood home. Offsetting the
masculinity of the toys, which are mostly “battle” themed, the feminine
patterning is meant to be testaments to the domestic realm in which
battles and wars were perceived as something fun and easily put away,
rather than the horrible reality they actually are. The juxtaposition
of these two themes adds an intended irony to the subject
matter.
(New York) hypnotic
“portraiture” is compelling for its blend of the hyper realistic with
the blatantly unreal. Fantastical creatures gaze out from paintings so
technically refined (using transparent layers of acrylic paint over a
tight graphite drawing on a smooth flat surface) that they look
uncannily like old photographs. Adding to the discomfiting presence
these animal/monster like chimeras have are the human expressions- even
if the creature in the paintings looks a bit bizarre, it also looks
spookily familiar as well. Often in his work Louie
seeks to create mythological ancestors…long-lost “relatives”
captured in Victorian cabinet card/ tint type images. His own interest
in Noir imagery, German Expressionism, personal dream imagery, (not to
mention B movie monsters!) as well as his recent discovery of old
photographs of “human oddities” that were not from sideshow
photographs, but rather photographs that documented that person’s
“normal life” (i.e. the famous photo of John Merrick (The Elephant Man)
dressed in formal evening wear for a night at the theater) all combined
in this latest series of works to create an incredible series of
portraits that you may just recognize elements of your own family
members in! Each painting comes with a story about each character
written by Travis. This will be Travis's largest exhibition
to date, featuring 16+ paintings, each one ornately framed in turn of
the century convex glass frames.
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