Delicious Paintings, solo exhibition museum Jan van der Togt Amstelveen The Netherlands

PRESS RELEASE

17 October 2019 - 19 January 2020

Delicious Paintings by Tjalf Sparnaay Hyperrealistic food-related paintings and new urban photographic artworks.

From 17 October 2019 to 19 January 2020, the exhibition Delicious Paintings Tjalf Sparnaay will be on display at Museum Jan van der Togt in Amstelveen, the Netherlands. The internationally acclaimed artist amazes his audience with his hyperrealistic paintings of extremely enlarged foods, ranging from a greasy fried egg to a scrumptiously stacked sandwich. The artworks come alive on the canvas and baffle the audience with their extreme precision and mastery. Sparnaay will also be showing new photographic artworks which – after their first presentation in New York in 2017 at Bernarducci Meisel Gallery – can now be seen for the first time in the Netherlands. The exhibition provides a wide-ranging overview of the surprising oeuvre of Tjalf Sparnaay, which is characterised by his original way of looking at everyday objects. Sparnaay (Haarlem, 1954) stands out by magnifying reality to the extreme, showing a remarkable ability to transform an image on canvas with photographic precision. In his paintings, he makes a deliberate choice to show only a detail of a much bigger concept. This creates a fresh perspective on daily life and on the essence of beauty. The works of Tjalf Sparnaay build on the Dutch tradition of meticulously painted foods from the Golden Age. His style resembles Vermeer in his lucid use of colour and eye for detail and refinement, while the lighting in his paintings recalls the play of light and shadow in the work of Rembrandt. Delicious Paintings brings these artworks together in Museum Jan van der Togt. The exhibition comes with a catalogue published by Waanders.

New artworks, never shown before: Urban Photography
Parallel to his painting, Sparnaay has also been accumulating a photographic oeuvre that will be shown for the very first time during thisexhibition. The result is a gorgeous series that, like his paintings, explores the boundaries between painting and photography. Take for instance Graffitical Archeology, a series featuring meticulously cropped close-ups of the Berlin Wall, which resembles abstract painting with deeper historic layers. Sparnaay: “I witnessed the transformation of a terrifying piece of bleak concrete which had been spray- painted by maybe a thousand artists throughout the years into one of the most colourful and liberated places in the world. By capturing it in photographs, I could turn it into a new work of art and show it to the world.” Photographic artworks under the name Urban Jungle show the context for the origin of the Urban Photography series. Sparnaay scours raw locations in search of picturesque gems hidden amidst abandoned buildings and rusted industrial architecture. The lighting and the interplay of light and dark in the images provide an effect that is reminiscent of Sparnaay’s paintings.

From 17 October 2019 to 19 January 2020, the exhibition Delicious Paintings Tjalf Sparnaay will be on display at Museum Jan van der Togt in Amstelveen. The museum is open Tuesday–Sunday, 11:00–17:00. The exhibition will be accompanied by the Delicious Paintings catalogue, published by Waanders in full colour, available for €19.95.

https://www.jvdtogt.nl/en/upcoming-delicious-paintings-of-tjalf-sparnaay/