Introduction on my work
My ideas are born while working, and my ideas take shape while working. It is an interplay between head and hands. It is a form of thinking out loud. Coincidence plays a big role. The work arises through “playing”. For me, it is essential to arrive at a visual meaning without logic or language. You play with ambivalent, irrational and uncertain elements. It is also the truth of the absurd that fascinates me. I give most of my works a title. Not to explain them but to add a literary element that helps thinking about a work. It is a dialogue with myself. Most of my work balances in the twilight zone between abstraction and figuration..
The German critic Larissa Kikol wrote; “Broekhuis new sculptures and setups are at the same time surrealistic dream images, which act on two levels of speech: that of the abstract story and that of the abstract image. In the abstract story you see metaphors and figurative images, in which the illusion of meaning does not necessarily wait for a translation. The abstract images here are not so much paintings reminiscent of the American abstract expressionists. For Robert Broekhuis, abstract means first and foremost absurd, even mysterious. In his work you do not see the notion of a transparent and predictable world.
I am a narrative painter. Not narrative in the sense of an anecdote, but narrative about a subject that I usually research for a few years. Some paintings from the period 2004-2013 could be seen as an unconscious attempt to represent loneliness. Emptiness and barrenness were constructed by distorting perspective, the use of colour and compositional interventions. The subjects are diverse. However different the works from the various periods may seem, there are also many connecting aspects. I usually abstract the form. In recent years, my work has been more sketchy and ‘rough’. The borderland between figuration and abstraction has always fascinated me.
Many paintings from the period 2004-2013 and the new paintings from 2023 on are figurative works made with abstract principles. After all, as a contemporary artist you are steeped in both figurative and abstract art. Both influence you. But also music, literature, film and photography. The subject is often of secondary importance. It often acts as a starter to get the imagination going. Especially the way in which you paint something -the form- plays a decisive role in creating the meaning of a work. So the colour and the skin of a painting play a dominant role. I avoid perfection. Life is not perfect either. Usually messy, unpredictable and painful. But nevertheless, I look for beauty in the authenticity of materials and composition. I choose materials for their metaphorical value and the meanings they evoke.
“…The movement that Robert Broekhuis himself brings about in his paintings is that of free fall, a weightless turning point in existence. He makes it possible for you to imagine this, even in paintings that lack the human figure. They offer you the freedom to imagine something that is absent in the painting. The work of Robert Broekhuis always shows an in-between space, the so-called liminal space that automatically transports you from one situation to another. A liminal space is always a transitional area where you stay for a short time, a landing, a corridor, a space revealed by an upright window or ajar door. It is the threshold of consciousness, the space between conjecture and knowing, between outside and inside, the imaginary space of a stair step that you miss when you stumble. Man then has an imperfect presence…”
Alex de Vries, 2022
The artist uses objects and materials unlike the abstracts just because of their meaning. The route we take within his work is intimate and an exceptional form of communicating the unspeakable. Outside the abstract aspect of his work and the ‘musical’ part, we interpret. Conscious of the language of things, of the poetry of space, he builds up series of associations that create a space of experience. In the end, the work of art guides us through the maker’s fairway. The artist seems to end his journeys with beauty as eternal comfort for loss and desire. Treacherous though, because on closer look he uses aesthetics to entice spectators to consider his work in more depth. And then they turn out to be metaphors for loss, destruction and cruelty. In spite of this his work shows also a zest for life and humour … His work can be regarded as an investigation into the human condition and the vulnerable state in which we humans find ourselves. Maurice van Tellingen, 2018
From an interview
‘My work is ambiguous. There are always unconscious factors that lead to a certain conception. Afterwards one can say: ‘It’s a good work’. But what is good about a work, you don’t really know. Therefore, interpreting a work is a rationalisation in retrospect. ‘
