Zonder titel

The paintings of Robert Zandvliet are about perception, making us aware of the difference between looking and seeing.

In this painting, a cinema screen – which normally shows images – has itself been turned into an image. The empty screen shows nothing but itself. Instead of a stream of images, there is a single, stilled image. The screen has been transformed into a painting, the film canvas into a painter’s canvas. The empty screen has become part of a monumental composition. And whereas a cinema screen usually serves only as a carrier of continuously changing images, it is now captured in definitive stillness.

Painting seems to possess a certain timelessness when compared to media such as photography and film, which inherently express the fleeting nature of the moment. Zandvliet’s screen may not carry images, yet it still reveals the essence of painting: colour, light, form, and brushwork. Although the work is painted in thin layers, the colour of the film screen shimmers. It seems to emit light along the edges. The curvature of the screen suggests a deep space, and together with the flat surface of the painting this creates a tangible tension. Not just the tension of looking, but more precisely, the tension of seeing.