Reviews

Wim van der Beek, art critic

2002

The renewed interest in figurative art is probably of no concern to precision painter Kees Thijn. He has always painted in his own way and style, and this very personal style of painting suits him. He has an eye for often-queer details. Still, no matter how precisely he dedicates himself to painting recognisable objects, Kees Thijn is certainly not a realist: in his paintings the artist places recognisable images in a surrealistic or magico-realistic context.
A worm-eaten apple is kept upright by a cane or patched-up with the aid of a leather belt and other apparently useless expedients.

The effect of these strange surgical operations is that apples, eggs and other items painted by Thijn start to live and literally display human features. This metaphorical approach perfectly corresponds with the painter’s need to exceed the boundaries between appearances and reality. It is very tempting to connect the painter’s medical background with his art. Hence his analytical working method, precisely due to a fascination for wounded objects, gives him enough concrete starting points and something to get a grip on.
As a painter, Thijn almost literally places his universe of objects on the dissection table or under a magnifying glass. His style of painting seems to incline towards hyperrealism.
The turkeys, butterflies and flowers sometimes look even more realistic than they really are.
The venom lies in the unusual additions which turn the logic of the image upside down.
Melting porcelain, turkeys in a vague landscape, a still life of wounded teapots and coffeepots, a chess-playing cock, a collection of dried or half-rotted fruit, a pear with a medal of honour, the stunted growth of an apple and other illogical blemishes and deformations show that the painter takes a devilish pleasure in teasing reality. Although calling his works bizarre or absurd might be going too far, it is obvious that the artist ignores a truthful correctness of the reproductions in his paintings.

Eric Bos, art critic, Dagblad van het Noorden

2000

What grabs my attention in the art of Thijn –autodidact that he is – is his ability to find his own way and to develop a style which is closely related to the Dutch Surrealism of Hynckes, Willem van Leusen and Melle, during the period roughly covering 1940 and 1960.

At first sight the remarkable expression of textures of the many objects in the universe of his work almost suggest that the artist cannot distinguish organic from non-organic structures – for example, wads of cotton-wool turn out to be clouds.

The fact that Thijn did not follow a formal education in an art academy is an advantage, specifically because the curious elaboration of some materials have a very alienating effect, which intensifies the surrealistic effect: there is no question of an existing world in his work. His horizons cease to exist beyond the skyline. Although the artist suggests that a number of still lifes form landscapes, it is all about the inner world. The softness, the atmospheric character of all this, very much suggests that we are really dealing with the inner man.

We look at well-known shapes and try to see the connections, just as a radiologist analyses his X-rays and tries to find an interpretation in the tangle of known and unknown details, diagnose the case, point out the differences between an emulsion spot and the germ of a malignant tumour, between a scratch and a very small crack.

Although it bears all its traces, the surrealism here does not proceed from the perception of the tangible reality but from the internal feelings of the artist, from his dreams and subconscious. His scenes represent his desires, fears and obsessions, whether sexually charged or not. We should see the scenes of Kees Thijn as personal metaphors, as playful mysterious pictures. The artist is constantly looking for the boundaries of substantiality, much like his recent series of china vases which serve as a metaphor of memory and remembrance and have a tendency to dissolve in the scenery of a theatre.