LAK-32, 2015, gouache on wall, 36m x 1m

presented in The Girl With The Sun In Her Head, Van Eyck, Maastricht, March – April 2015

The starting point for this group exhibition was a conversation with curator Pádraic E. Moore about the 1952 short story Monte Verità by English writer Daphne Du Maurier. The story contains motifs and symbols that resonate significantly with the work of the artists involved in this project. The narrative focuses upon a young woman who renounces her marriage and life of material comfort and joins a pantheistic mountain sect who partake in solar and lunar rites. Essentially, the central theme of the story is the search for transcendence in a world suffering from spiritual starvation.

Telepathy features prominently in Monte Verità; characters receive ‘psychic messages’ and are impelled to act by unseen forces.  This phenomenon is a useful metaphor for considering visual arts subtle but potent power to create and disperse knowledge via methods of communication that are often unwritten and unspoken – and all the more important for that.  This exhibition is a testament to the fact that although art is distinct from -and cannot be a surrogate for- religion both are capable of satisfying similar needs.

The group exhibition features new and recent works by Van Eyck participants Dario D’Aronco, Egemen Demirci, Niek Hendrix, Vanessa Hodgkinson, Joris Lindhout, Stéphanie Saadé and artist Susan MacWilliam. Curated by Pádraic E. Moore.