Cruize (Twilight)

Maaike Schoorel’s paintings are based on photographs, but omit the visual information we might expect. Instead of a complete image, she presents an attenuated and spectral vision, with only selective details preserved. Like other examples of her work, The Cruize (Twilight) creates a zone in which to pause, search and reflect on our ways of seeing. Through unhurried appreciation, evanescent tones of thinly washed paint – initially appearing merely as faint abstract marks hovering in blank space – gradually disclose a trio of figures on a boat. As the artist explains, ‘we are used to looking at images in high or instantaneous speed. Media such as television and the Internet present everything in a disjointed way. My paintings reveal themselves in slow time. I try to make images that have a sense of connection. For these paintings I worked from family photographs, but I was specifically interested in scenes which relate to genre painting, such as landscapes or group portraits. We are used to seeing these types of images, and my work changes the order of how we view them: once you discover one detail it will link to another, creating a sense of movement and interconnectedness.’