VAN DEN BROEK - SEM-ART Gallery

KOEN
VAN DEN BROEK
(1898 - 1967)
Koen Van Den Broek makes paintings that deal with
the edges of urban spaces, as well as both the built
and un-built landscape. His series of border paintings
(2000-2002) are large-scale semiabstract canvases that
employ flat, unmodulated areas of colour, to investigate
architectonic boundaries such as the wall of a house,
the straight perspective of a road, or the edge of an
urban sidewalk. They intimate a journey to an unknown
destination, out of view of the canvas, directing the
viewer’s gaze away from the its surface to a distant
point beyond the depicted field, creating what the artist
describes as a visual confusion regarding depth and
perspective. Much of Van Den Broek’s work evokes the
huge, broad landscapes of North America, in particular,
the interstate system of LA and its boundaries, where
the artist has spent several months living and working.
Following on from the Border paintings, Van Den Broek
made a series of pictures which depicted engineered
structures such as bridges and viaducts, from which this
painting, Viaduct (2002) is an example. Always devoid
of human presence they are silent monuments, denied
of their use, seeming almost dumb and inert. While
Architecture is often a starting point for the pictures, the
final image is an abstracted, codified composition, often
a depiction of only a fragment or detail of the structure in
question. For Van Den Broek the subject of architecture,
using lines to configure and build in space, is analogous to
the act of constructing his canvases where a few strokes
and blocks of colour can depict a large, landscaped
perspective. Absence is a vital component in this work:
what the pictures don’t say is as important as what they
clearly evoke. Using a snapshot as starting point, the
images undergo a journey from reality to photograph,
from photograph to painting, where the original subject
is many times removed. In this way, an un-peopled but
irreducible world is created.
Alexandra Bradley
SEM-ART
20, avenue de la Costa
98000 - MONACO
Tel. : +377 97 70 50 70
Fax : +377 97 70 50 77
info@sem-art.mc
www.sem-art.mc
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Koen VAN DER BROEK
LE BATEAU INCONNU, 2010
90 x 60 cm
Oil on canvas

3
Koen VAN DEN BROEK
UNDEFINED, 2011
135 x 90 cm
Oil on Belgian linen
Signed

4
Koen VAN DEN BROEK
THE GREEN HOUSE, 2011
150 x 100 cm
Oil on Belgian linen
Signed

5
Koen VAN DEN BROEK
STAR ISLAND RD #2, 2011
165 x 110 cm
Oil on Belgian linen
Signed

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Koen VAN DER BROEK
W. LANCASTER AVE, 2010
180 x 120 cm
OIl on canvas

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Koen VAN DEN BROEK
GRAND PRIX, 2010
180 x 120 cm
Oil on canvas

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Koen VAN DER BROEK
SIGN OVER RED AND YELLOW BORDER, 2010
90 x 60 cm
Oil on canvas

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Koen VAN DEN BROEK
THE FOREST #1, 2005
50 x 75 cm
Oil on canvas

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Koen VAN DEN BROEK
MESQUITE FLAT, 2009
266 x 400 cm
Oil on canvas

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BELGIAN ART Exhibition at SEM-ART GALLERY

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BRAFA 2012: SEM-ART GALLERY BOOT