Hendriks paints according to a preconceived plan and method. The images in his head are often of a natural simplicity. The light on a slackly stretched canvas, the reflection of the sun on a fogged up window, a cloth out of which the shape of a vase is cut. They are very reminiscent of the trompe l'oeil. When Hendriks gets such a picture in his head, he experiments with techniques for as long as it takes for him to find the right painterly method to create multiple paintings of the same subject. He frequently opts for seemingly insignificant, almost anti-aesthetic images which consequently gain aesthetic and substantive significance after his treatment of these images on the canvas. A painting by Hendriks intimidates because of its lack of doubt and abundance of certainties. "This is the way it is and not otherwise," the painter seems to be saying. Still, despite the intimidating effect, the paintings offer sufficient leeway for the viewer to fill in the painting and finish it with the eye.
You have to believe a work by Lieven Hendriks; he compels you to. You are immediately enchanted by what you see, you believe it, but you have to doubt it. It can't be true.
Hendriks masters painting like no other; he knows exactly what to put where. He pulls out all the stops to deceive us; nothing in the work should disturb that enchantment. And how wonderful it is to simply let yourself be carried away by that illusion. Hendriks' works trigger a whole range of memories.
That brief mirage, or that first glimpse of the landscape from the darkness of a cave.
Lieven Hendriks (Velp, 1970) works in Arnhem.
