Luc Tuymans - Painter

[BerlinRocks]

Luc Tuymans is considered one of the most significant and influential contemporary painters working today. He is one of the key figures of a new generation of figurative painters who have continued to paint during a time when many believed the medium had lost its relevance. In the context of the new information age, many artists felt that painting was a deeply conservative form of expression which did not match the heterogeneous nature of contemporary experience. Tuymans' work specifically addresses the challenge of the inadequacy and 'belatedness', as he puts it, of painting.
Tuymans was born in Antwerp, Belgium in 1958 and began to study fine art in 1976. He concentrated on painting but in the early 1980s he lost faith in the medium and gave up for two years. During this time he worked as a film-maker, and when he returned to painting in the mid-1980s, he introduced new techniques such as cropping, close-ups, framing and sequencing, which remain key elements of his work today.
Tuymans' work is a vast repository of data, drawn from photography, television and film, combining a range of different styles and subject matter. His subjects range from major historical events, such as the Holocaust or the politics of the Belgian Congo, to the inconsequential and banal - wallpaper patterns, Christmas decorations, everyday objects There are also paintings which express abstract emotional states, titled 'Embitterment' or 'Insomnia', which imply existential or philosophical responses to the human condition.
Tuymans' range of imagery deliberately resists categorisation. Events and ideas are not expressed explicitly, but implied through subtle hints and allusions, creating an ambiguous collage of disconnected fragments and details. Tuymans has extended this approach in the exhibition hang at Tate Modern. He has chosen to present individual paintings from various bodies of work, bringing together disparate images from different points in his career. This approach signals Tuymans' belief that representation can only be partial and subjective, and meaning must be pieced together, like memories, through isolated fragments.

tate modern

I'm bored this afternoon... so...

 

[BerlinRocks]

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Luc Tuymans The Secretary of State 2005
oil on canvas, 18 x 24-1/4 inches


[/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Luc Tuymans Ballroom Dancing 2005
oil on canvas, 62-1/4 x 40-3/4 inches

artcritical.com
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[BerlinRocks]

The Architect (1997)
Oil on canvas

tate

 

[BerlinRocks]

Nuclear Plant, 2006
Oil on canvas
38.19 x 68.9 inches
97 x 175 cm

davidzwirner.com

 

[BerlinRocks]

Still Life

2002, Oil on Canvas

347 x 500cm

Exposing the gap between represented image and historical event, Luc Tuymans' paintings delve into the inner workings of how mythology is created. The reality of Tuymans' work is almost 'twee', pleasing images of a lampshade or leopard-skin rug pass quite comfortably as aesthetic totems; it's only their cognitive association with the Holocaust, or atrocities of the Belgian Congo, that encapsulates the true banality of evil - the unspeakable horror in a teacup, the monstrous potential of an empty bath. Tuymans' paintings consciously fall desperately short of the iconic, becoming vestiges posed as counterfeit emblems for that which cannot be conveyed.

Still Life is a monument to this inadequacy of language. Made initially for the 2002 Documenta, Tuymans was expected to present paintings of images relating to 9/11 to coincide with the exhibition's theme of political and social engagement. What he decided to show was a giant still life. The sheer scale makes the contemplation of this painting almost impossible: a vast canvas representing an absolute nothingness. Tuymans chose the subject of still life precisely because it was utterly unremarkable; a generic 'brand' of 'object' rendered to immense scale, it is banality expanded to the extreme. The simplicity of Tuymans' composition alludes to a pure and uninterrupted world order; the ephemeral light, with which the canvas seems to glow, places it as an epic masterpiece of metaphysical and spiritual contemplation. In response to unimaginable horror, Tuymans offers the sublime. A gaping magnitude of impotency, which neither words nor paintings could ever express.

saatchi gallery

 

[BerlinRocks]

Within

2001, Oil on Canvas

223 x 243cm

Tuymans paints the indescribable. His dark muted scenes seem vaguely familiar, distant like haunting memories. Drawing his inspiration from grand themes, Tuymans taps into a universal social guilt: from the Holocaust, or imperialism, to child abuse.

By minimalising his images, he creates a raw emotion through paint, each painting linking spiritually, somehow instinctively, to the rest. Within is a tranquil vermin metaphor for contamination and disease.

A close-up detail of a birdcage, this painting more than conveys feelings of hopelessness and isolation: through its sheer size and potency, it literally traps the viewer, swallowing him into a prison of collective consciousness.

saatchi gallery

 

[BerlinRocks]

Blacklight 1994
olieverf op doek
55 x 82 cm

depont.nl

 

[BerlinRocks]

The Worshipper, 2005
105x74cm

lacamaralucida.com

 

[gius]

before reading the little article
my first impressions were..
feeling of emptiness and something lacking
and also at a certain time of the night, the time you're awake and everyone's asleep but it's bright out --twilight? when you're all completely alone

there's something nice and calming about the paintings though
Thanks for introducing him here, Berlinrocks