René Schoemakers | Paradigms Tossed
An intense confrontation with painting defines Schoemakers’ work. To place him into an art historical narrative or an -ism, it is almost impossible. Naturalism, maybe, hyperrealism with an ironic note, observing the world with a little smirk. Schoemakers is both, artist and philosopher, and uses both lenses while exploring the world and his surroundings with an uncompromisingly astute radar for the essential questions of life. Schoemakers works are like painted collages and theater backdrops at once.
There are full of synchronized functional layers of representation: images within the image, models and figurines, logos and text fragments, photographs, pieces of paper and notes, and toys – all within the painting. Often, the viewer is reminded of the art historical tradition of “Trompe L’Oeil”, a fooling of the eye and the spectator. Most often, these trompe l’oeils are light-hearted and witty, while Schoemakers showcases an eerie and uncanny complexity of human interaction. The artists created installations of 3 to 15 works, and what seems to be an individual art work, it most often is part of an installation. This conceptual whole is achieved through careful arrangement and hanging, The individual pieces remain in constant dialog with each other. Schoemakers is a concept artist whose works are to be understood as orchestrations, extreme naturalism as a form of representation. Unmitigated and directly confronting the viewer, the works have a brutal, yet sharp clarity about them.
Thematically Schoemakers’ work is multi-facetted. He facilitates conversations in multiple directions, utilizing children’s drawings, books, and toys as well as historical paintings and installations. He explores and expends the world in his art and makes the viewer find his own way out. In Paradigms Tossed Schoemakers shows a small, thematically independent, selection of his latest works. There is one large installation with 12 drawings and several smaller groups of paintings. These works stand in direct dialog with Nicolas Kerksieck’s installation and sculptures.
