CURRENT
RONALD ZUURMOND
Mumbo Jumbo
January 22 – March 6, 2010
There’s something about the portraits painted by Ronald Zuurmond. They are depicted head-on, with their faces towards us, but they never look us in the eye. Actually, they don’t seem to look at all. Maybe they can’t, maybe they’re blind. But because of their dominant and central position on the canvasses, they draw maximum attention. There is no turning back: they’re hypnotizing, and they pull us instantly into the image. And that is when something special occurs. Spectator becomes participant, attending festive occasions, but in these scenes life is not celebrated exuberantly. Allthough the strings of paint become party streamers, the individuals portraied by Zuurmond look gruff and grim. Maybe they don’t notice that a party is going on. They all seem to be self-absorbed. It’s us who enter their world, they don’t get any closer. Ronald Zuurmond painted his first portrait, of himself, in 1993. And for a long time it was also his last. Not untill 2005 did he start painting portraits again. In the meantime he mastered his painting by looking closely at all things surrounding him, all things passing by. That could be flowers, a floor, a small fruitbasket, almost rotten banana peels, a colorfull fly curtain. And now, at this moment, portraits. Just because the genre is there. Ronald Zuurmond is an intuitive painter. The beginning is an idea, and while painting, form calls on the image. For him, painting is searching, looking, removing, pausing and composing again. Or destroying. A painting is only succesfull when all is in place, when all becomes real. Not because it looks real, but because it feels real. Because all that is painted is convincing. His recent portraits also show his style consistency. He knows how paint works, how a trail of paint becomes a collar. Or is it a mouth? Or is paint just paint, composing material, so therefore merely an abstraction? The difference between the figurative and the abstract is in fact not of great importance, because every stroke is accurate and effective, and so they all have meaning. And what about the difference between image and background? Does it matter? In these paintings image and background have become equal. A portrait is strong and centered because the strokes of paint surrounding it, hold it and support it. The portrait becomes powerfull from within because it draws us closer, and it is powerfull because it’s in balance with its foundation and surrounding. His consistent style and his confidence in painting, offer new opportunities. To vary space between strings and streamers for example, so that the image will receive more light and air when needed. To make portraits stand out, or on the other hand to make them stand back. Or to duplicate it to be able to make a more scenic picture. But portraits it is. And what if they look like a pair of shoes? It puts them right back in perspective. Because nothing is more important than painting itself. Ronald Zuurmond is a painter, whatsoever.
December 2009, Frits De Coninck, artcritic