Each painting by Ide André (1990, NL) forms the sediment of an energetic act. The works show the traces of his actions, as if we are looking at visual scores or seismographic registrations. But it’s not only about the gesture of the painter. For André each painting forms part of a greater whole, a kind of ‘arrested action’. The dynamic appearance of the rough and energetic traces they leave behind on the canvas open up a whole new world of references and structures. André: ‘The work starts to resonate, like a self-writing poem.’

The figures in Ralf Kokke (1989, NL) his paintings are always bent and rugged. You can see how years of hard manual work have manifested physically and psychologically. In this respect, he feels connected to painters such as Co Westerik, Frits Van Den Berghe, Constant Permeke and Max Beckmann. They often depict figures who are stuck in certain structure from which they want to escape but fail to. From the start to the end of their lives, they are not able to escape the yoke of social pressure.

Layer after layer Janine Van Oene (1988, NL) climbs the walls abstraction, raising herself to the precipice of representation and offers an interesting contrast with the other artists. Through the alchemy of mixing colour and calligraphic strokes, she resuscitates motionless forms drawn out from the fake reality of outdated interiors, plastic flowers and forgotten curtain patterns. Memory drenched objects are brought to life in unexpected ways. Here the act of painting is a means through which she explores solutions to a puzzle of forms. The results of which perch themselves on the edge of things we are invited to recognise, only to tumble down the playful swathes of motion she has laid.