VAN MALTESE
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS - I saw her duck
- Fact or Fiction
- How long is a piece of string?
- company
- Birds flew down to peck at the painted grapes
- The Compleat Gamester
Empty pockets
Trompe l’oeil device Grid averted, or?
Empty pockets
Trompe l’oeil device Grid averted, or?
Empty pockets no. 1 - no. 10
- oil on panel, read oak frames, enamel on cast bronze, magnets, 2023
Empty pockets, is borrowed from a trompe l’oeil term of the same name. This term is used to describe paintings that render the literal contents of a person’s pocket on a surface suggesting a table.
The flatness of these images is not an oversight but a deliberate choice, reminding the viewer that paintings always have a deceptive nature — the ability to trick the viewer’s eye into seeing depth in a two-dimensional image. The flatness of these paintings insist on being seen as they truly are — a painted surface.
Bronze replicas of gum chewed by the artist are “smuggled” into the paintings by assigning them a colour that perfectly matches the green painters tape heavily featured in each composition.
Upon first glance, these amorphous green shapes are almost missable, appearing to be painted directly into the compositions. But with sustained observation, the viewer will notice the real shadow cast upon the surfaces by these three-dimensional components.