Dürst Britt & Mayhew is proud to present‘Show me – What lies beyond the hills and the mountains and the earth?’, a solo exhibitionof new works by Paul Beumer.
In his fifth solo exhibition at the gallery Paul Beumer presents a completely new body of work. It is thefirst time he has ventured into the realm of batik, a traditional wax-resist dyeing technique used to create intricate patterns on textiles. Batik is primarily associated with Indonesian (Javanese) culture, but is also practiced on Sri Lanka, where Beumer regularly resides for research and collaborations with textileartisans.
In comparison to Indonesia batik from Sri Lanka tends to favour brush strokes of greater thickness that allow for free flowing patterns. It also uses more intense and bright colours, mixing traditional and contemporary styles, as well as abstract and geometric patterns. Since the 1950s and 1960s it has taken on a more informaland creativerole, findingits applicationin the artisticfield as well as in design and fashion. This painterly and open character of Sri Lankan batik appealed to Beumer, who was originallytrainedas a painter.
For this new series of works, he looked to the paintings of Janet Sobel and Jackson Pollock, two artists whose work he has studied extensivelyin the past. Both Sobel and Pollock embraced the unconscious and an intuitive way of making art within their painting practice.Their images are not organised, but rather seem to be the residue of a shamanistic rite, in which movement and ritual are more important than creating a ‘beautiful’image. Beumer’s batiks were also createdin this exploratoryand free manner.
Paul Beumer (1982, The Netherlands) holds a BFA from the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and is a former resident of the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten in Amsterdam. Recent solo and duo exhibitions include ‘Recovering a Talisman’ at CAN Cristina Androulidaki Gallery in Athens, Greece; ‘Play becomes joy, joy becomes work, work becomes play’ at Artisans’ in Mumbai, India; ‘Pilgrim discovering anotherworld’at Dürst Britt & Mayhew;‘Aslong as you know I am waiting,take your time flowersof the spring’ at Galeria de Arte Mexicano (GAM) in Mexico City; ‘CONDO Mexico City’ at Proyecto Paralelo in Mexico City; ‘Paul Beumer & Willem Hussem’ at Museum Jan Cunen in Oss. He participated in major group exhibitions at the Fries Museum in Leeuwarden, Museum Het Valkhof in Nijmegen, Museum Kranenburgh in Bergen, Museum De Paviljoens in Almere, and the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague, The Netherlands.
Work by Beumer is held in private and public collections, including Museum Het Nieuwe Domein, Sittard; NADA Collection,New York; AKZO Nobel Art Foundation,Amsterdam; Dutch Ministryof Foreign Affairs, The Hague; Academic Medical Centre Art Collection, Amsterdam; District Court of Law, Amsterdam;Rattan Chadha Collection,Voorschoten,Netherlands.
