Pim Blokker approaches the canvas as a game board. In his work the
perspective continuously shifts or stretches out, and formal qualities
and the physical act of painting both collide and merge. Blokker is not
interested in illusion making but in linking personal associations to
new depictions of reality. He sees the collective consciousness as
something without a structure, end, or beginning, and plays with our
fixed connotations and expectations of reality. This he does through
juxtaposition, a confrontational use of logic and a slapstick kind of
humor.
The lightness of a joke sets off the gravity of tragedy
and visa versa. Juxtaposing hilarity and horror, two emotional
extremes, allows him to examine somber issues in a playful way, to pass
off absurdities as logical and to undermine seemingly established facts.
His
work shows a certain lightness and openness what is particularly
evident in the wall paintings he created especially for the gallery. The
brushstrokes have a leisure like quality and remind of the optimism of
some 1950’s paintings. Blokker knows his classics and can borrow
iconography from the 80’s to give his own interpretation of all he likes
to use.
