KIKKERDRIL

Spring is in the air! Birdsong, frog croaking and fresh spring colors predominate at this time of year. And even though the dark clouds in the east of Europe are gathering, the artists of Outsider Art Gallery celebrate the return of light and color and show their great creative pleasure in complete freedom.

Chris Dierdorp (Amsterdam, 1973) teletransports Vermeer’s iconic image to the present with his breathtaking series ‘Girl with a Pearl Earring’. In direct and virtuoso brushstrokes, he examines the shy girl and mut(il)ates her into 25 older sisters, more or less similar in appearance. Leonardo Davinci’s always smugly smiling Mona Lisa also appears to have been transformed, in this case into three members of the Kardasian family with an impenetrable layer of make-up, nail polish, hair dye, silicones, botox and other fakes that define this family. Vermeer and Da Vinci meet Warhol!

Norbert de Jong (Heerlen, 1967) paints fantasy animals, musicians and lovers with bright colors in flowing lines. Everything in his work moves and swings with great feeling and joie de vivre. There is nothing more pleasant than sitting on an Amsterdam terrace on a warm spring day or cycling along the canals!

Thijs Derks (Amsterdam, 1948) makes abstract dripping paintings a la Jackson Pollock. Like the other artists in this exhibition, Thijs is self-taught. His paintings originated in his bedroom in a residential care center. Despite his physical limitations, he makes one painting a day. An article by Hans Sizoo about his art was published in the Dutch magazine Palet in 2018: ‘Each time the image shows a different appearance, a different structure, a different color scheme. You just don’t get bored with it. And above all, there is always a fabric of touches, usually not large and sometimes just small, but always with the maximum of life that can be elicited from the dead material of paint.’

Aurelina de la Cruz Santana (Dominican Republic, 1967) has recently started working at the ceramics studio of Bijzonder Amsterdams. Her colorfully painted and richly decorated mugs refer to her Caribbean background. She herself says about her work that she likes to work with her hands and not to think too much but ‘just doing it’.

Marcello Pieter Stokhof (Amsterdam, 1962) shows ceramic bowls and plates with fantasy animals, bird-like and abstract. Marcello used to take LSD in the past and he has had these fantasies ever since. The colours, applied with ceramic pencil, are mysterious as he sees them in his mind’s eye.

Also on display are some beautifully glazed and decorated plates made by artists from Galerie ArtBrut058 from Leeuwarden and the Patta shirts by Regillio Benjamin and Desmond Tjon A Koy developed during the Outsider Wear project.