Suspended

There is barely any need to introduce the Belgian painter Luc Tuymans (1958). For years his paintings, drawings and prints have ranked among the leading works of international contemporary art.

At a time when it was mainly concept art, performances and video installations that set the tone, Luc Tuymans surprised the art world with figurative, often monochrome scenes in which he resolutely and unexpectedly heralded the revival of classical painting. Since then Tuymans has become a key figure on the international art scene, even though in terms of both themes and technique his oeuvre can hardly be called classical.

Tuymans makes use of photographic devices such as cropping, framing and extreme close-ups to set his figurative compositions, however attractive they may be, in an ominous light. His disturbing canvases, often in pale colours, are a photographic representation of emotionally charged subjects, such as a lampshade from Buchenwald, a broken doll’s body, memories of the Belgian colonial past, or the cropped portrait of a doctor (Der diagnostische Blick).

The painting Suspended, which has been re-interpreted in the form of a screenprint by Tuymans and the master printer Roger Vandaele, dates from 1989 and can thus be regarded as one of the artist’s early works. The strikingly colourful scene refers to an extremely realistic but empty world. Moreover, this work evokes a painful silence. The three figures beside the swimming pool, at a safe distance from one another, with their hands thrust deep into their pockets, are engaged in a strange dialogue. Something is evidently going on. An ominous event hangs in the air, which makes the scene mysterious and elusive.

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