2023

14.12 — 17.12 Wobbe Micha Kenichi Ogawa Joke Robaard Art Antwerp 2023

Wobbe Micha: Throughout recent summers Wobbe Micha has dedicated himself to an ongoing series of ceramic sculptures. In these works, Micha carves intricate forms directly into the flesh of watermelons. Immediately after completion, a plaster cast is meticulously made, allowing the subject to be re-erected in clay.

Pigmented glazes lend a captivating touch to these sculptures, the vibrant contrast of red and green hues accentuates the inherent allure of the watermelon’s seeded flesh.

As the season draws to a close and the last remnants of buzzing flies fade away, Micha brings his vision to fruition, creating a collection that encapsulates the fleeting nature of life and memory.

Joke Robaard: With the series Se-lections, Joke Robaard transfers structures that govern clothing to the structure of language: the visible substance – the fabric – disappears and the invisible – the seam, the dividing line, which creates coherence – becomes substance. The seam is cut out, the rest is cut away, the invisible structure becomes visible form. There is only a cut out path, everything else is gone. From that moment on it is possible to see right through these skeletal structures and speculate about the intentions and gestures of the wearer. The objects or actors appear to point left or right, raise their hands, fall, turn. Just as letters are created from a grid, these works arise from an event, a situation. This series was initiated in 1978/1979 and continued in 2020.

The work of Joke Robaard (Meppel, 1953) is an ongoing investigation into the representation of people, as they emerge in groups and networks. Her photo works, canvases, videos and diagrams reflect the changes and shifts in the connections between people, clothing and language. Since 1978, Robaard has been working on an extensive image archive consisting of thousands of pages and clippings from magazines and newspapers. Together with writer Camiel van Winkel, she published the book ARCHIVE SPECIES, Bodies, Habits, Practices. In it she inventories and questions strategies of represented humanity.

Kenichi Ogawa: This is the first time Kenichi Ogawa’s silicone paintings are presented in Belgium. After his participation with a single work -the much-discussed large pants at the Hilton Hotel, during the sculpture exhibition Art-Zuid in Amsterdam in 2013. And several introduction is Nederland by the gallery Mieke van Schaijk.

The silicone paintings, images of mainly men/women with children, with sometimes a cat/ dog/ sheep? here and there have intimacy and affection as subjects. With a sensitive and personal awareness of physicality, Kenichi Ogawa uses an entirely personal working method for this.

K.O.; What is it for a man to have a prolific sense of touch? The material silicon gives something of a touch of human skin. “When I use this material in my painting, I feel I am making full use of my sense of touch. My working process is; First, to base-paint the canvas by oil; Next to cover the painted canvas with silicon using a long knife for cutting cake; Then to make a drawing by way of scraping off the silicon with a brush. This should be done at a breath, for fear of silicon easily getting dry. Time limit is always to be kept in mind. This demerit of using silicon material, however, could cause a good feeling of once-for-all tension, like Japanese calligraphy, I think.