Entitled The Charm of the Valley of Death, the exhibition features large canvases and smaller drawings. With a sense of absurd humour, Van der Pol presents a juxtaposition of small portraits, landscapes or microenvironments and abstract geometrical shapes in basic colours on the same canvas. The different areas of the canvas affect and even reinforce each other. Sometimes the areas even reveal their chronology, as paint from one drips down into the colours of another.
Van der Pol works with pictures and information from the media and television, the Knoll Gallery says on its website.
"From his early childhood he has stored images in his mind which spring from strong personal experiences, dreams and visions....They may originate from direct observation, or they may be derived from television and photographs. In both cases, they consist of strong motifs which deserve to be collected as trophies."
Where is the promised "grace" in the Valley of Death? In Van der Pol's invitation to the viewer to reorganise the images and put them together in a better whole.
Author: Eszter Götz / Photo: Knoll Galéria
