“Painting has for centuries been an experimental laboratory where all upcoming aesthetic codes are being worked trough. It has functioned as a parallel reality, virtual world long before television and photo were discovered.
Contemporary art lacks a concrete body and ideology which opens up for a multitude of different approaches and techniques: from hyperrealism to monochrome minimalism, graffity-simulation to neoacademism. I dare to say – everything is possible! Painting has spread to a very broad territory and its boundaries are blurring with other media.
With contemporary painting it would be wrong to eliminate any specific aspect of painting, however traditional they might appear. I do not believe in the statement that the most important thing is the message itself. Verbal messages alone do not carry a message. Sometimes technique itself is the message, and in practice this means that the comprehensive message of the work is constructed together with the technique.”
View Jaan Elkens work:
- Recent paintings (2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011)
- Recent exhibitions
- View artist catalogue