home

terug

Everything in order?

There is more to architecture than building. It's about arranging and planning the public space. In the ABC Architecture Centre two exhibitions can be seen, though with a different point of view, in which this aspect of environmental planning is illustrated. One is about the regular cityscape of Haarlem and the second one is starting from scratch on a white canvas. We are talking about the pictures of Helmuth van Galen, Eric de Nie en Jan Polak.They show an obvious affinity, although touch and sphere differ, it's about orderning. The paintings of Helmuth van Galen can be defined as abstract interiors. The coloured vertical bands, almost panels, do create complex vistas with supposed spaces behind. Not real but imaginary spaces. Maybe the power of suggestion, but you really feel the layers.

René Borgonje- Haarlems Dagblad, November 2001.

nov. ’01 Renee Borgonje Uitkrant Haarlems Dagblad

top

terug

Helmuth van Galen: Solidity makes you hold on.

Livingroom.

Van Galen started his artistic expedition by copying ."You have to master what you see. Daily I was engaged with drawing and later on with painting. After my training as a teacher I explored France on bike, worked here and there, painted and sold my work on markets. The next year I succeeded a training as painting teacher at the Amsterdam Academy of Visual Arts. The academy was my home, my studio where I was making long nights. I realised then and there that I wanted to be an independent artist, not a teacher. Painting was the most important. Yet I am teaching adult amateur painters three shifts a week". 

Tenacious theme.

Soon van Galen knew he wanted to deepen his work by focussing on one theme. "In the beginning you paint everything that moves you, but then I wondered what I really wanted and what belonged to me. I don't want to paint haphazardly". The first theme van Galen focussed on, was "archipaints", a combination of architecture and painting. For instance he painted the structure of a building, great colour fields and lines in it. Gradually these buildings turned into inner spaces. "I then had a workshop in an old mill in Heemstede and those "inner spaces" have been my source of inspiration for quite a while. I used parts of the space in my imagination and so the picture is generated".

Colour fields.

Van Galen is only interested in the space not the interior behind. "In the beginning the spaces I painted were fairly recognizable but later on I left the elements like a table or a roof beam. I want to show the crux of a space, without frills. The loose elements out of the space became colour fields and thus more abstract and colourful. A certain tension exsists by the use of light and colour and by the rythm of the bands that are created by the different colourfields and lines.

  Landscapes.

The thirth theme van Galen is occupied with,is "outer spaces." In 2002 I took part of an exhibition with the theme: view of Haarlem. At first I was at a loss what to do because I paint inner spaces, no landscapes. Yet gradually I grew into it and now I can not get away from the idea outer spaces. I paint stilled vistas in piled up horizontal bands. Colour, light and depth are each giving character and sphere to for instance a polder landscape or a coastline". Eventually van Galen wants to create an idea of a space. "A painting has to evoke a not definite, yet recognizable space for everyone. Painting is an indirect or delayed form of communication. I want to make paintings that are recognized and understood but also surprise. That people spontaneously say that they never looked that way. Each work has to provoke, there must be more to it than a beautiful landscape".

  Thoroughness.

Van Galen works in a very thorough and structured way. "All those years I force myself to focus on that one and only theme, spaces. I am very diciplined in that. I permit nothing else. There must be a continuous thread in my work. I force myself to work as regularly as possible. That thoroughness, long-windedness is a necessity for me. I can work on a painting a very long time. I don't give up before it's allright".

Van Galen realises that by focussing on the same theme constantly he limits himself. "On the one hand you limit yourself, on the other hand it's a deepening. The longer you work at a theme, the more difficult and challenging it becomes. You can't repeat yourself so you have to deepen, better yourself. You must get rid of galling points to get to know your weaknesses. You are growing even more critical, sometimes over the top. In those moments I am not a nice person to cope with.

Nice job.

To be occupied with beauty is one of the things van Galen likes about the trade. "And the comparative freedom. That freedom is limited because you oblige yourself of course. But it's nice to be my own man. Now and then it's boring that I feel compelled to explain or defend my work.That I have tell that a theme or procedure is a choice and has a more complex background than most people think. It's not only a matter of taste, to view and to appreciate, has to be learned and developped.

Own way.

Van Galen values going his own way. "Therefore I take part in solo- and group exhibitions but do not work on commission. For then it would be hard to concentrate on my theme.

What van Galen wil paint in he future he does not know. "The future is how it comes. I presume I'll always will use the theme space, but in which form I don't know yet, probably I will get bored of painting landscapes. It will however be an consequence of what I did before. The most important in the future is being able to paint, it gives fulfilment, I don't have to become a millionaire. I should like to combine painting with travelling, for instance by taking part more often in exhibitions abroad".

Abundance.

Like most starting artists, painting did van Galen not do well there in the beginning. Yet after five years he could live by his works. "In the beginning of my career I was still rather ingenuous, I thought making good pictures meant succes inevitably would follow. I have altered my sense of reality. I don't have the illusion of exposing in the Stedelijk Museum anymore. Commercially I should be more active, I try several ways now, up till now everything came towards me. So I was nominated several times for different art prices and on request I assisted in a Teleac youth program, I had to explain children how it feels to be a painter. I like this kind of side activities a lot".

Signaal maart 2003 Linda Jansen, uitgave Staalbankiers

top

terug

Interior the theme at exhibition De Galerie.

The "Night pieces" of Helmuth van Galen.

Van Galen uses litres of turpentine to get the oil out of the oil paint. In a way he presses it out. He has to open all the windows to avoid an acute poisoning. This explains the diffuse appearance of his oil paintings. You could presume he worked with acryl paint.The drippings you see especially on his larger paintings, are gossamer meandering currents. They give the nice diffuse effect that's adding to these inner spaces something transparant and therefore something unreal. That's emphasized by the special use of colours. It seems to be always night in his work. Van Galen is staying close to home with his theme inner space, his paintings are one by one assimilations of his studio. The three large ones hanging in the gallery do have a fotographical outlook, but never commonplace. Van Galen reconstructs the frame of his composition with tape, it could be compared with Mondriaan's method. So ridgid edges arise. It is notible that his aquarelles and smaller paintings in acryl are more abstract. In them the fotographical effect of his larger work is undone because he keeps himself to horizontal and vertical colour strokes. A trend tentatively manifest in his larger works.

BEELDENDE KUNST • RECENSIE AART VAN DER KUYL

top

terug

Every painting has his own bloodstream.

"When people ask me what I paint, I usually respond: Think of an 17 century interior paintings in other colours, leave the frills and the symbolism. There is a similar spaciousness".  So, you could think of an interior of Pieter de Hooch, one in which the attendance of the spectator from an interior through an open door, through a back room or hall and open front door, is directed to the street. A glance crosses the rooms in search of the sunniest section. All paintings, aquarelles and silk-screen prints exposed by Helmuth van Galen (1955) in the SBK bear the name "inner space".Though that is not to take literally. Van Galen: "They are rhythms of horizontal and vertical bands in colour fields. I paint these inner spaces by heart- they are not copied- and I make them without using the perspective. The depth there is caused by shifting the layers, by form and colour schemes. By colour the light arises." Then you see the colour bands and areas that are next, through and over each other.You see that the paint (always acryl) is mixed with the still wet under layer or is scrapingly and unevenly introduced on a already dry area. Sometimes all what lies beneath is hermeticaly locked up by a colour area. Van Galen: "The area loosens itself from the space, sometimes that is good but I want to judge it in every painting. Every painting has a character."a blood stream of his own. After leaving the academy I made "archipaints" a combination of architectonical elements and painting, canvasses with glazed colour areas, very dark , here and threre a line to bring structure and spaciousness. But it grew so bare, I only did formal things, the work was so introvert and it crippled me. Now I am working with a lot of colour, more life to it. Though the work keeps being monumental and it has to stand firm, it is more subtle . No sharp edges". Amazed you undergo the colour sense of van Galen and the way in which he effects space and an almost flawless balance. Why is he fixed on a theme we do not have to take literary? Van Galen: "You choose a subject to prevent your work to diverge.

  Haarlems Dagblad, 22-02-01, Monica Aerden.