Henk van den Bosch

‘Time’ plays a significant role in Henk van den Bosch’s (1960) oeuvre. In his interior pieces time makes its presence felt in several guises, and then in the same moment does it again. The level at which we initially experience the ‘time’ factor is immediate; the work exudes a natural compulsion to look at it actively. Not a brief glance, but a proper, slow look; study it, discover it and then look again. The spectator has to take the time to thoroughly scrutinize the work. The spaces constructed – sometimes telescoped – have a complex structure. Any attempt to reconstruct a painting from memory is a cruel failure.

In the paintings the seasonal indication of time appears to be depicted by means of the sun’s position – given away by the light and shadow. But is it actually possible to accurately read this time? Or do they in fact sometimes contradict each other and thereby mislead the viewer? In Van den Bosch’s recent work the landscape is given an increasingly important role. Applied with a light touch, the landscape forms a contrast to the rigidly painted modernist interior. Atmospheric impressions against the hard contours of the architecture. The painted landscape conveys a notion of the time of year; a cold winter landscape, an Indian Summer or a war spring landscape.

Text: Judith van Meeuwen, curator Kunsthal KAdE