Art-loving Society Pictura in Groningen holds its annual Winter Salon. That means art for every taste and something for everyone. A fun search for the gem among everything else.
This week is the last week of the traditional Winter Salon in the halls of Pictura in Groningen. It is a sales salon and therefore a rather hybrid phenomenon, something of everything, abstract and figurative, without a clear theme or story.
It is about the expectation and hope of the participating artists, ripe and green, to sell something. Your work should not be too exceptional or confrontational, because art buyers do not like that. There you hang in those silent exhibition rooms, like one big waiting family. Like dogs in a shelter that want to come with you.
In the meantime, there is plenty that will do well in your living room or office, so I would definitely take a look while I still can. Because such a Salon is actually very suitable for discovering your own gem among the multitude of work by 34 artists. Walking around attentively definitely pays off.
Gems of miniature painting
A gem suddenly appears to hang between one work of art and another. Such as two paintings by Erica Scheper, Some other Spring and The male gaze . She prefers to paint a wallpaper pattern on which a postcard of a famous work of art is applied. Gems of miniature painting. With a hyper-realistic painted socket on the wall as an encore.
Or the abstract compositions of Minne Vijver downstairs in the Van Houtenzaal, such as Three stripes . Gems, for example, are the small, abstract compositions by Meint van der Velde. It seems like nothing, but it is full of feeling.
There is also spatial work. A small sculpture by Emily Wortel, Human Shape , on a high pedestal in an almost abstract shape that is reminiscent of the human body. And two touching little statues on the floor by Beitske Sikkema, a woman and a dog, with titles like Waiting 1 and Wait 2 which, given their attitude and appearance, they indeed do.
Tineke Otten usually makes ‘soft’ art; in Pictura, for example, this is a bookshelf with a nice row of textile books on it. With titles and all.
Memory and desire
But if I had to choose, my gem so to speak, it would be a little painting by Beth Wong with the title Wishes . We see the shape of mountains on the horizon, a barren plain or a lake, a path, and a woman and a man walking on it. A little dog dribbles behind it. Everything in soft gray tones.
Don’t impress, but express something with as little as possible. Super simple, but it invites you and awakens everything, memory and desire. Poetry.
Pictura Groningen
Winter salon , Pictura, St. Walburgstraat 1, Groningen. Open: Wed to Sun 1-5pm. Until March 10.