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Interchange Yellow (2017)
von • by Robert Vellekoop

www.robertvellekoop.de

In view of the big questions of human existence, streets, street

lights, street signs and house plants seem to be rather second-

ary. Such habitual objects may, however, be the actual protag-

onists in our everyday life. This is also what the paintings by

Robert Vellekoop suggest whose topics are precisely what is

seemingly secondary and common: In the overall structure,

black and white areas turn out to be an office setting with a

computer (Office); winding streets circle around neon signs and

street light in the dark (Interchange Yellow); four stelae rise up

diagrammatically, tropical foliage in the foreground identifies

them as skyscrapers (Tropic). Vellekoop uses wood-core ply-

wood as the base for his geometric representations of sections

of cityscapes reduced to what is essential and interiors of
acrylic and lacquer paint. The starting points for these are not

actual architectural models but rather specific types which

Vellekoop recalls from memory by using a general vocabulary

of forms. His atmospheric works are created by applying sever-

al layers of paint as well as colour erosion. The blurring of

memory as well as the darkness of the night wraps his motifs

like a veil. Silence appears to spread over the paintings. What

is familiar seems strangely lost, even sinister. Mistrust develops

of what, after all, is common. Building complexes, infrastruc-

ture, road guidance systems and advertisements force the

human beings out of the cityscape. In Vellekoop’s paintings,

people are only present through their absence. While the build-

ings and objects are given a stage, humans are missing.

Anna Sabrina Schmid
Reproduced with kind permission of Behörde für Kultur und Medien, Hamburg