TORCH is excited to exhibit a very personal project by Krijn Kroes, in which he pays tribute to his grandfather and returns to his youth growing up in the natural environment of the Veluwe. His new artworks serve as a vessel to preserve a family history. There is also a strong formal drive behind Krijn’s work, as it is a continuous exploration of the possibilities and challenges provided by material, colour, contrast and reflection. Two disciplines together make up the body of work; intertwined yet clearly definable. A series of new oil paintings provide an intriguing update on his previous two-dimensional work, while the mysterious new wall-based ‘fossil’ pieces bridge the gap between Krijn’s paintings and his earlier ceramic sculptures.
Some time ago, Krijn received an extraordinary gift from his beloved grandfather: his archive of slides with photographs he took of orchids and (alpine) flowers. As an ecologist, he would often research which flowers would bloom when and where, and travel to examine and document them. Krijn has taken on the task of preserving and processing this collection of analog photos full of memories and stories. The flowers have found their way into his new oil paintings, which were born from a need to work more organically. From a distance, these possess a dense darkness reminiscent of his previously exhibited work. Yet, as they are built up of many incredibly thick touches of paint, they reveal an intense burst of colour upon closer inspection.
A series of imposing paintings and an exclusive site-specific wall painting depict the enormous tree that dominated the view from the bedroom of his youth. He has painted the tree as the scary ghost it appeared to be in the pitch black Veluwe nights. The new ceramic ‘paintings’ incorporate natural elements in a different way. In slabs of clay the thickness of a painting, negative prints of plants are visible. The boundary between ceramics and painting is further blurred by the application of glazing in multiple colours.
About the Artist
Krijn Kroes (1994, NL) followed an agricultural study and worked as a florist before graduating in Teaching and eventually Fine Art from Utrecht School of the Arts (HKU) in 2020. He has since exhibited at Galerie Ron Mandos (Best of Graduates), Sanquin, Springboard Art Fair, among others. Within only a few years, Krijn has gathered a dedicated following of fans and collectors. Letters to my Grandfather is Krijn’s first solo exhibition at TORCH after a successful ‘half show’ in 2022 and presentation at Art Rotterdam 2023. In November of this year, he will take part in Unfair in Amsterdam.
