Lily de Bont

The paintings of Lily de Bont (Ulvenhout, 1958) are both a destruction and a reconstructed alternative to the archetypical painting. De Bont attacks the painting head-on by cutting the canvas to pieces, removing it from the stretcher as an act of reversed weaving. Whereas she initially stiffened the damaged canvas with plaster or epoxy, in recent years the canvas has remained supple. Armed with a scalpel, she carefully dissects the canvas like an accomplished pathologist. The unraveled threads hang down loosely and change the overall appearance, including the dimensions when the work is tilted or draped differently. The wooden stretcher, if present, is exposed like a skeleton. In other work, the slats become independent and are further dissected by means of what she calls amputations. Finally, the canvas can also do without a frame. Here her work touches on the principles of the French Supports/Surfaces artists. It is the "preparation" of the canvas, the reduction, that further deepens the theme of "Beauty and destruction" and exposes unprecedented possibilities.

She herself says about her working method: "With the unraveling of the threads, I discovered that a fabric is actually a grid. By using the grid for precisely positioning the paint, the composition, I have infinite possibilities and more control over the result. By cutting the linen loose between the painted parts, I hand over part of it to gravity. This inevitable force becomes visible in the work. The painted parts themselves, hold the linen together and are now the constructive element of the work. That which was previously done by the stretcher bars.

In the most recent works, there is no longer a distinction between a front and a back. De Bont paints both sides of the canvas. The works are hung at right angles to the wall like flags on metal constructions. One side is the mirror image of the other. The work is both extremely flat and extremely spatial. Far away and unexpectedly close to what we usually expect from a painting.

Lily de Bont (NL) lives and works in Rotterdam. She graduated with honors from the Sint Joost Academy in Den Bosch in 1989. She received the "Lucas Prijs" and the "Jan Hoet prijs" and was nominated by Jan Hoet for Documenta IX. Recent exhibitions include NL=US Gallery, Rotterdam/ New York(NL/USA); VOLTA New York (USA); Furnace Gallery, Falls Village Ct USA; Artphy, Onstwedde (NL);Sebastian Fath Contemporary, Mannheim (DE);Transmitter New York (USA); Art Taichung (Taiwan); BUG2 Gallery, Tainan (Taiwan).

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