Artist:		Jannes Kleiker
Technique:		oilpaint
Date of exhibition:		October 7 - November 5, 2000

Jannes Kleiker

Between 1978 and 1984 Jannes Kleiker (1957) learned the tricks of the painting-trade at the Minerva Academie in Groningen. He was, of course, confronted with the obligatory series of subjects, viz. the landscape, the portrait, kitchen-utensils and finally the nude. The female nude. It was love at first sight, and painting form a model immediately became his favourite subject. With teachers as Matthijs Röling and Wout Muller he could have done a lot worse. Needless to say that the nude is omnipresent at this exhibition. They are divided in three series. In the "Cave-cycle" graceful and unmistakably contemporary nudes are depicted against a background of cave paintings that are approximately 20 centuries old, dating from a time that the ideal of beauty was normally expressed in earth-motherly figures with very fertile proportions.

De question, Jannes Kleiker, 1998, o/p

The "Elefant-cycle" is oriental as regards "stage-setting". In this series the painter seems to be heading in new directions in order to find a new balance.

In the light of Heveskes, Jannes Kleiker, 2000, o/p, 80x100 cm.

The third and most extensive cycle centers round Hevekes, once a charming village near Delfzijl, but now completely gobbled up by that town. Only a single old church still bears witness of that pre-industrial past. The rough, bare walls of this empty place of worship serve as a background for the glimmering light on the soft female skin. It’s a wondrous light that sometimes forcefully rushes in through the high windows, only to ­ in another painting ­ flow in like liquid silver.

It’s art that’s truely significant.