Mathieu Maijers - The Girls Playground (The Grave)
Lux Nigra. Close your eyes and you can see light on the inside. This is the black light or lux nigra. The black light doesn’t stand for fear or absence, but is absorbent and welcoming. It envelops the viewer and is pure potential: here everything is still possible and anything could develop. This makes it the opposite of white, which is reflective, dismissive. White locks life and humanity out.
This exhibition displays works from three series: Girls’ Playground, Shadows and In front, over, under and behind the light. The fence from Meijers’ primary school is the point of departure for Girls’ Playground’s exploration of light and colour as matter. In Shadows, a projector screen and an unlit incandescent bulb depict the moment before the light changed into image, the ‘light before the light’. Finally, In front, over, under and behind the light is Meijers’ personal analysis of the development of thinking about colour in painting over the centuries.
