Solo exhibition of WJM Kok.
WJM Kok's body of work is comprised mainly of either monochrome paintings or of works that refer to monochrome paintings. He is known particularly for a series of monochrome painted tabletops from Ikea tables, presented as a painting with their legs against the wall. For him, the validity of presenting tarpaulin or sytrofoam insulation panels as monochrome paintings is not an issue. He prefers to let the size, color and material to be determined by industrial standards. He often makes use of general formats from the outside world. For example, the standard A-4 paper size is a format that he prefers to use.
In the exhibition 'More Than One of Each', WJM Kok makes again use of material that already exists. However in this case he uses his own material of large paintings that he made between 1988 and 1992. In this painting series, he selected images from a coloring book entitled 'Maxi-Color' as a departure point and transferred them onto 200 x 145 cm. sized canvases. With this exhibition, a new concept of presentation has been added which intensifies the abstraction of the original coloring book images. The upside-down position of the paintings causes a radically different gaze towards the otherwise easily recognizable contour drawings from the coloring book. This intervention does not change anything in the paintings themselves but in a way doubles the scope of the series by calling into question how the work can be viewed. This doubling/duplication is furthermore recorded in the form of a certificate with a #-sign added to the title of the work. Each canvas provided with such a certificate gives the owner the opportunity - with authorized permission of the artist - to also hang the painting upside-down.