09-11-2018

Dutch Design Daily

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Richard Sluijs www.richlab.nl

Accidental Twomblies

By 09-11-2018

Designer Richard Sluijs (RichLab, The Hague) saw it happen one day, years ago, outside a DIY hardware store. A girl carried out two large buckets of white wall paint, and was figuring out how to get them home on her bicycle. One was hung on her handlebar, and the other was placed on the rear luggage rack. She managed to get on the bike, steering with one hand and holding the rear bucket in place with the other. Stepping along with one feet on the ground she succeeded in building up her speed, and left the parking spot – though not in a straight line. The weight of the front bucket made her shift to the right, off the sidewalk. The difference in height made the rear bucket bump on the luggage rack, which she clearly didn’t see coming. The bicycle got out of control, and as a result the rear-bucket landed on the street. Upside down, popping the lid: making Richard the witness of an unintentional real-life action painting scene.

Fortunately for her, she managed to save the second paint bucket from spilling, but once Richard had seen that unfortunate incident, he noticed – especially near construction sites and paint shops – more people had run into a similar stroke of bad luck, resulting in a wide range of beautiful abstract forms in the public domain which he started collecting: random drippings and imprints, but also drag marks and scratches, all unintentional but with the artistic quality reminiscent of the works by several abstract-expressionists like for instance Jackson Pollock, Karel Appel, Asger Jorn, Antoni Tàpies & Cy Twombly. Artists he learned to appreciate during his years at the Arts Academy. Honoring the latter appealed to him the most as the best sounding title for a new series of abstract-expressionist collages he made with pictures from his vast collection (one step ahead of runner up ‘Unintentional Pollocks’).

A first glimpse of the new ‘Accidental Twomblies’ collages can be seen at the group exhibition “Inside’18” in The Hague, organized by The Hague Street Art.

Group exhibition ‘Inside’18’
Korte Vijverberg 2, The Hague
17 to 25 November, 2018
www.thehaguestreetart.nl