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Description

We could regard the reddish-brown shape in the middle of the painting as being a mountain landscape. The blue and blue-grey lines around it would then be water. The yellow ‘rays’ above it and the yellow outlined dark shape appear to be a light source in this predominantly gloomy painting. The orange-yellow rectangle in the top left corner is reminiscent of a lit window, although it does not fit in with the representation of the landscape. The three blue shapes in the foreground of the landscape are not easy to interpret. They could ‘carry’ the landscape.

René Daniëls’s paintings are rarely unambiguous, and that is his intention. In an interview with art critic Anna Tilroe in 1983, Daniëls said, "There is a disease that typifies this day and age: the meddling of art historians in art. It often seems they are only seeking to confirm their ideas about art. Consequently, their interpretation is far too unambiguous, simply so that they can pigeon-hole you as quickly as possible". Daniëls admires artists who never allow themselves to be pushed into a corner, but take the liberty of associating or playing with the range of possibilities that painting has to offer. Here he breaks through the pattern of expectation that a painting must be explainable, and prompts the observer to draw their own associations.

[2020]

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