“Do you want your egg fried or boiled? Salt and pepper? Fresh orange juice? A cup of tea?” Reality presents itself to us afresh every day. On waking we can see, feel, smell, describe and use it. The reality of the things around us is so self-evident that we take it for granted. We break the egg on the hard rim of the frying pan without thinking. We set the timer to hard-boiled or soft-boiled and we pour the boiling water over the tea bag in the mug.
Tjalf Sparnaay takes the subjects of his oils from this everyday reality. Trivial items such as a fried egg, a breakfast, a bag of chips with mayonnaise, a Dutch raw herring with a little flag, a bunch of tulips still wrapped in cellophane play the lead roles in his pictures. Over and over again Sparnaay elects a subject taken from life. Recognizable, accessible, everyday and simple. Almost banal, and yet so fascinating as an object, as a Ding an sich. Sparnaay is not satisfied with the everyday reality we see repeated endlessly around us. In his paintings he lets reality run through his fingers afresh and gives it something subjective, a soul. He simplifies it and adds to it, enlarges it, thus opening our eyes to the tiniest details. The subjects he chooses are highly enlarged and removed from the context of their day-to-day surroundings. Placed in a classic art environment they lose their utility value and take on a new identity and a monumental character. A trivial object depicted down to the tiniest detail becomes a majestic work of art.
In the early eighties Sparnaay developed a fascination for photography. Walking around Amsterdam like a documentary film-maker he recorded the day-to-day life of the bustling city in snapshots. The fascinating thing about these photographs is the way he opts for quiet and clichéd moments. A bicycle chained to the bridge with a bunch of tulips under the carrier straps, a slice of bread and peanut butter with the first bite taken out of it. A literal, photo-realistic approach to reality, moments captured for eternity. Using photography he quotes from daily life in the round. At the same time Sparnaay developed his skills for drawing and painting.It is here that we find the key to his current style and personal signature: “His paintings begin where the photograph ends”. Henceforth his photography is the point of departure for his painting.
During the eighties and nineties snapshot photography and the narrative line of his archaic work came together in what Sparnaay calls ‘Mega-Realism’. It was during this period that he also encountered Photo Realism, a movement in American contemporary art where the artist depicts reality faithfully from a photograph, enlarged or otherwise. Sparnaay gains inspiration from the works of such famous Photo Realists as Charles Bell, Ralph Goings and Richard Estes. Whereas the American Photo Realists are concerned mainly to document and represent objective reality, Sparnaay quotes, interprets and intensifies it. Sparnaay’s Mega-Realism combines his Photo Realist approach to everyday things with his archaic, Magic Realist work. Instead of representing the object using photography, in his Mega-Realist works Sparnaay takes the spectator on a journey ‘right through the thing’. The object is ‘explored’ and ‘discovered’ down to the smallest detail. Photography serves as Sparnaay’s sketchbook: the snapshots are studies for his paintings. The painting grows layer by layer. Sparnaay goes through the object he is painting like a kind of radiologist. Under the realistic surface of his paintings is the soul of the object, an essence we were never aware of before.
The pictures are easily accessible and we do not need an extensive knowledge of art to appreciate them. Initially they give us a window on reality, a trompe l’oeil. We could grab the ‘bag of chips with mayonnaise’ right off the canvas, ready to eat. If we look longer we discover lots of fascinating details in the painted object. We suddenly notice thousands of jigsaw pieces, snapshots, mingling in a play of brush strokes, hues, light and shade. The grains of salt play an ingenious game on the ‘skin’ of the fried potato; the calorie-rich mayonnaise tries to escape from the dented plastic tray. The plastic fork stands up like a lighthouse in a landscape of calories. This is a genre piece of contemporary consumer society, displaying the influence of great masters such as Rembrandt (in the refinement of detail and dramatic lighting) and Vermeer (who had a sharp eye for the beauty of small things and the moments of everyday life). Sparnaay quotes reality in various narrative lines and layers. “Is this ‘thing’ really so ordinary? I’ve never seen it like this! Does it tell us more than we think we see?” With his playful, humorous and at the same time extremely classical and painterly approach to the subject Sparnaay allows us to re-experience his chosen object at various levels. Each layer of the painting has been produced with intellectual precision, with photography as the point of departure. The sum of the photographic sketch and the painting is more than just a hyper-realistic picture of the object. Reality and illusion go hand in hand. The paintings transcend the capacity of the most trained eye or the most sharply focused camera lens. The details in the picture are a multiplicity of snapshots, each developed with extreme finesse. The DNA structure of the object is shown in meticulous detail. Sparnaay penetrates to the essence of the subject: his aim is to show the Ding an sich, not just as an object. The paintings are an amalgam of the haptic qualities of the subject, as well as the idiosyncratic nature and personality of the object. Sparnaay gives the object back its uniqueness and originality in all its strength.
Sparnaay’s works are humorous and monumental, classical and yet light-hearted. In a word, a feast for the senses. Sparnaay’s Mega-Realism could be described as simplicity multiplied a millionfold. The details and focal points of his snapshot photography meld, giving what is at first sight a trivial, ephemeral subject an eternal value.