The mighty Rik Lina has an upcoming show in Amsterdam: “Homages: In Honour Of The Ancestors”.
Here’s what he has to say about it:
My homages and tributes to admirable ancestors are no exercises in style. They are in the first place travels of discovery in a parallel universe where ancestors – painters, poets, musicians – wander about, restless, ghostlike, elusively alluring, and always striking in alarming way. Such as Odilon Redon, his flower-bouquets mirror in my coral reef paintings, recognizing his lithographic black during night dives by the new moon. Or the meeting with “Loplop Bird” when I – too shy to offer my hand – pinched his photograph from the press-table in his retrospective in Amsterdam Stedelijk Museum 50 years ago…it is still hanging in my studio. Hercules Seghers, neighbor in the Amsterdam Jordaan-district, wandering with me in the Sahara, Sinaï and Atacama deserts…my Chinese, Japanese and Arabic calligraphy-teachers…it is true all these impressions defined my technique or acted as temporary anchorage in the boundless ocean of painting. Max Ernst’s “Elephant of Celebes” became my “Elephant of Sulawesi”, Vincent van Gogh’s ”Potato Eaters” became my “Potato Head Blues”, literal origin from my octopus of styles for which I still am looking for trousers.
RIK LINA
Rik’s work is always amazing, and I’m sure the show will be great. I only wish I could get there. Perhaps you can go on my behalf?
Rik Lina: Homages – In Honour Of The Ancestors
11 January to 1 March 2020
Private view Saturday 11 January, 4–7pm
ARTTRA Gallery
Tweede Boomdwarsstraat 4
1015 LK Amsterdam
Opening times: Monday to Friday, 10am – 5pm, or by request
Image credit: Rik Lina, 1997 saba-wells bay (hommage aan Tao Chi), from exhibition publicity material
Take a peek behind the veil.
Merl Fluin 