Het huis
Description
An underpainting of a space that appears to be a gallery shows through a white coat of paint. We see the perspective of a room, coloured paintings on the walls and what could be a lectern or a piano next to a microphone. A thin paintbrush has been used to create shapes resembling bow ties onto the white coat of paint, although they could also represent three walls of a room. Two shapes are different, being more reminiscent of painted window shutters.
The underpainting is very similar to Daniëls’s painting entitled Innodiging (1985). An invitation to an exhibition of his work in that year shows a similar image featuring the word ‘innodiging’ (a play on the Dutch word for invitation, ‘uitnodiging’). An invitation card from 1986 includes a drawing that looks exactly like the overpainting that Daniëls has applied here in Het huis. Both images, the overpainting and the underpainting, are part of a series of works entitled Mooie tentoonstellingen, [Beautiful Exhibitions], which Daniëls painted during the 1985-1987 period. In it he plays around with the possibility of interpreting a picture as being flat or as a three-dimensional space, or both. There are always multiple layers (literally in this case), and the painting is open to several interpretations.
[2020]