Marc Alphen | Akateeminen Kirjakauppa

What drives the form of abstraction that characterises the work of Marian Breedveld? Since the late Nineties her work is first of all characterised by the repeated, horizontal brush stroke. The substance of the painting is the result of the fact that this identical movement is consistently repeated. This repeated gesture applies layer over layer, colour over colour. In the tradition of abstraction, however, the visible brush stroke and the gesture that causes it, is usually seen as a manifestation of the hand of the painter. In the words of Breedveld: 'I want to present the brush stroke as much as possible as brush stroke'. From the perspective of the standard vision on abstraction it is rather paradoxical that her later work again and again evokes 'landscapic' associations. This is because of the horizontal format of her paintings, because of the repeated horizontal brush stroke, but also because of the role played by light in combination with the horizontal character of the work. Standing in front of one of Breedveld's paintings it is immediately clear that the work was not made on an easel, but flat on the ground. The left and right hand sides of her paintings show that clearly.
The paint has evidently gravity and the weight of it makes the paint hang to the ground. So, the moment that the painting is hang on a wall, the frayed edges point to the wall. This characteristic of Breedveld's work is more than a formal feature. It is a fundamental step by means of which Breedveld takes distance from a long tradition in Western art in which the position of the artist in relation to the canvas on the easel is the model for the visual project that is being realised within the painting. This monograph provides an overview of Marian Breedveld's oeuvre.