Bram Reijnders
The Netherlands, 1974
Mixed media
“In a world where we are haunted by advertising slogans, political promises, media hypes and self-promotion on social media, I regularly ask myself: what is really true? If we believed all the messages around us, we would end up in a surreal universe that usually looks more beautiful than it actually is. What do I think about that?”
In his recent works, Reijnders displays this universe through snapshot photographies of everyday situations from various cultures, which have an alienating and isolating effect. He mixes these with thick layers of billboards. These are nearly animal traces that man leaves behind in his attempt to draw attention to the “urban jungle”. His way of seizing the volatile spirit of the times is immortalized in synthetic resin. His work symbolizes constant duality between purity and interests, beauty and transience, life and death. By mixing these techniques, Reijnders expresses his ironic passion for a contemporary world from which he is clearly a product of.