What: Round & Around, solo exhibition Reinier Asmoredjo
When: Friday November 18 thru Saturday 26, 2016. Opening hours: Monday thru Friday from 8:00am-4:30pm and on Saturday from 8:30am-1:30pm. Extra opening hours in the evenings on Friday the 18th and Saturday the 19th of November from 7:00-9:00 pm
Where: Readytex Art Gallery, Steenbakkerijstraat 30, Paramaribo, Suriname
Reinier Asmoredjo believes that it is important, as a Surinamese artist, to create works with a clear Surinamese identity. That identity has indeed always been front and center in his work. Viewers of Asmoredjo’s work inevitably find themselves almost seduced by the warmth and the energy of the sun, the beauty of the Surinamese flora en fauna and the sensual allure of the Surinamese woman, portrayed so well on his canvasses.
The imagery in the collection is vibrant and colorful, recognizable, but in part also new, abstract, and at the same time also figurative. The familiar elements in the work of Asmoredjo, such as the sun, nature, flowers, fruit, birds, fish, and especially Surinamese women, are again the common thread throughout the work in his new collection. Important therein are the circles, as seen in the shape of the sun and now also as an extra visual detail at the end of the sun’s rays, and very importantly also in the rounded shapes of the female body. They symbolize fertility, the never-ending cycle of life; all the things that make the world turn around: Round & Around.
But in addition to circles, straight linear elements also play an important role in this new collection. Strong profiles with prominent lips, round breasts and derrieres are strengthened in image by elegant long stretched necklines, horizontally extended linear coiffures, and consciously applied lines and stripes. Finding the right balance between the abstract and the figurative is the challenge that Asmoredjo consciously and wholeheartedly takes on every time he sets to work. And he is usually quite successful! This is not really surprising, since each of the artist’s compositions is worked out meticulously in sketch before he even approaches the canvas. Abstract and figurative come together beautifully in a diverse and colorful collection of more than 30 paintings in various sizes. Vitality, beauty, strength and sensuality radiate from his canvasses in a typical and striking way.
Reinier Asmoredjo, ‘Morning Breeze’, acrylic on canvas, 47x74cm / PHOTO Readytex Art Gallery, 2016
Reinier Asmoredjo, ‘Sarong’, acrylic on canvas, 73x100cm / PHOTO Readytex Art Gallery, 2016
Reinier Asmoredjo, ‘Fon Ksaba’, acrylic on canvas, 100x152cm / PHOTO Readytex Art Gallery, 2016
Reinier Asmoredjo, ‘Reincarnation’, acrylic on canvas, 100x152cm / PHOTO Readytex Art Gallery, 2016
