AMSTERDAM.- For the Opening of the Amsterdam Gallery Season Marian Cramer is presenting a group show with five international painters opening up on eccentric visions or small scenes that make the ordinary slip away. Breaking the rules of perspective and sometimes of propriety the redeeming smile translates into a more muted concern about the human condition. Dreamlike worlds where characters, more or less deformed, are frozen in postures both familiar and bizarre. Paintings that are characterized by their flat, saturated colors and clean, synthetic lines. The themes the artists deals with are varied, including still life’s, nature, landscapes, portraits, mythological scenes and more.

All approaching these themes with energy, irony and humor, and with an eye always on art history. Through their paintings they seek to offer a story, open for interpretation.

The Show runs until 28th October 2022

On canvas, cardboard, metal or brick, Mathilda Marque Bouaret's paintings have in common a curious form of strangeness accentuated by their apparent awkwardness. They are uncomfortable images. They emanate from a dreamlike world where characters, more or less deformed, are frozen in postures both familiar and bizarre. Mathilda Marque Bouaret writes down scenes she sees or mental images in notebooks whose drawings will initially be paintings. She seeks, she says, to surprise herself. One understands the uneasiness that can arise from the situations that the artist stages. The light, the colors, the forms depicted in these paintings carry the mark of facticity that the bodies only reinforce. Mathilda Marque Bouaret's imagination is intranquil, her paintings hesitate between humor and fright: two snails embrace on the beach, seagulls with a silly look pass over characters, two hands hold "an endive like a small bird", the naked back of a figure with an uncertain sex offers a disturbing pearly mass, they are always embarrassing images by their enigmatic character and their half-naïve half-ironic treatment.

Mathilda Marque Bouaret belongs to a generation that has chosen painting to describe its dreams. Their disquieting character gives to this enterprise the stamp of cruel truths.

Juan de la Rica graduated In 2007 in Fine Arts from the University of the Basque Country. Since then he has shown his work in numerous national and international exhibitions.

His painting is characterized by its flat, saturated colors and clean, synthetic lines. The themes he deals with are varied, including still life, portraiture, mythological and religious scenes, etc.

He generally approaches these issues with irony and humor, and with an eye always on Art History. In his paintings, he tries to offer an open narrative, where there is space for free interpretation.

Leyla Pekmen is a Turkish and British contemporary artist living and working in Istanbul. Born and raised in Turkey, Pekmen started painting at age three. Spending most of her time in the art studio of their neighbor, she got fascinated by different forms of art growing up. After working in local and international advertising agencies, in 2005, she founded her own agency in 2005. In 2010, Pekmen joined a local art studio and reconnected to her true passion of Art creating paintings and ceramic sculptures. Leyla has presented her works in various group exhibitions and opened her first solo exhibition in June 2021, in Istanbul.

Nature, landscapes and life’s simple pleasures are recurring themes in Leyla Pekmen’s works. In a world where it’s hard to escape from negativity, Pekmen explores her fascination with nature and pleasureful memories as a coping mechanism. These memories painted with vibrant colors, almost surreal, create a dreamlike paradise. The artist views herself as a storyteller and sees her work as a get away from the reality of everyday life and ‘an invitation to dream’. Inspired by Ottoman miniature artists, her distinctive naive style radiates joy and tranquility and expresses the spirit of her multicultural background.

Pepi Schikowski paints spontaneous and impulsive images, created with vigorous energy, joy, and strong curiosity.

An orange face, a village by sunset, or a smiling person showing their literal hourglass body are just a few of the larger-than-life-size figures portrayed in Schikowski’s wild brushstrokes and saturated colors.

Schikowski draws every day, making sketches and scribbles, both analog and digital. These sketches result in a growing collection spread across his studio, which forms the basis of his works. On a daily basis, he is looking around his workspace, browses through his sketches, and chooses one to turn into a painting. Working fast and energetic, it takes him only a couple of hours to finish a work. He strives to keep it as quick, intuitive, and honest as possible, feeding the belief that the painting needs to be done the second it starts to want to exist.

Carried out in monumental proportions, the immediacy and a striking dedication to the poetry of painting lead the creative process. By working in series, he is capable of experimenting with different approaches on how to make a painting, simultaneously keeping a playful challenge.

In this series, Schikowski is interested in both making a drawing and painting one. By closely mimicking the feeling of a quick sketch on the large scale, the intuitive speed and ease extend onto the canvas. Blocking in the figures into a tight colorful background equally locks them in place and sets them afloat.

Nina Vandeweghe creates fascinating visual worlds, populated by a mishmash of bizarre, funny and sometimes downright grotesque figures, amidst seemingly carelessly left behind scraps of paper, splashes of paint and powerful lines.

The colorful characters have long limbs and gigantic hands with which, gesticulating and grimacing, they make their way through everyday life. Her powerful imagery may look chaotic, but it is anything but: each composition is striking and if you look further, you will soon discover the subtle layers in each scene.

Her works, in a mix of techniques and materials, are accurate observations of mankind with all its faults, worries, ambitions and emotions, supplemented with Nina's personal experiences and feelings, always laced with a lot of humor and perspective: life is one big, intense journey of discovery and a roller coaster of emotions. Life is fun!
Nina is a native of Ghent and teaches illustration at the KASK. Nowadays she lives in the Marolles neighbourhood in Brussels where she also has her studio. She feels at home in both cities and finds plenty of inspiration in everyday life.

Working for theater companies, magazines, and recently made a series of Graphic Novels.