EYE

Glance into the world behind the art

Johan Abeling: stilled mystery of the Northern Dutch landscape
JOHAN ABELING / Jun 25th, 2017   


Johan Abeling is an incomparable fine painter. In his paintings he knows how to create the misty, deserted silence like no other, which is so typical of the landscapes of the north. A look out of the window on a misty day in a village somewhere above Groningen, gives a one-on-one reflection of the scenes that Johan Abeling uses to put his brush on the canvas.
 
Emptiness of the North
Johan Abeling was born in Emmen in 1953 and followed his painting at the Groningen Academy Minerva, where he had his first exhibition in 1977. Over the years he has developed into a precise fine painter. All his paintings share the same atmosphere: a sense of mystery, emptiness, the endlessness of the deserted plain, or the lack of view, because only a tree comes into view, the bare branches forming an erratic picture with the mist that surrounds. Johan Abeling prefers to paint the vast North-Dutch landscape, in which sometimes a displaced villa, a pole or a gateway will spur the viewer's imagination. Who lived in the villa? Will someone come into the picture anyway and why are there piles around the house? Abeling does not answer this question, his story always plays in the dark ...
 
Minimal elements, maximum atmosphere
Johan Abeling tries to create a maximum atmosphere with as few elements as possible. The painted subjects all refer to a possible reality, but are combined in such a way that an entirely new reality is created. The painter about his works: 'It is about the atmosphere, the feeling that is evoked, playing with composition and light. My paintings are, as it were, personalities with their own story and emotion. ' Those who seek peace, the feeling of being alone with yourself and nature, can find solace in the paintings of Johan Abeling. They offer an escape from the chaos of our everyday life. Nature ticks quietly in the hands of her perpetual rhythm, while man loses himself in his hurried existence.
 
Sfumato
Abeling has mastered the technique of sfumato. This technique was already used by great masters such as Leonardo Da Vinci in the Middle Ages. Sfumato is a technique that creates a diffuse and filtered light. By applying various transparent layers, the contours of the painted, which gives a mysterious effect to the painting, fade. Abeling sees in the way in which he paints the light again and again, a reflection of his own moods: 'For me, the landscape is like an ideal of an intact world, which is professed in words, but rarely visible.'
 
From 2 March to 22 April 2018 you can see the mystery of Johan Abeling with your own eyes during the exhibition 'Realistically seen'  at gallery Wildevuur. We look forward to your arrival.
 
More about Johan Abeling can be found on his own website
 

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