A different focus

I sometimes refer to when DW and I had a gallery in Chicago. I occasionally google the name of the gallery just to find artists we showed who have websites and list having shown at “bona fide.” When applying for jobs, grants, etc., it helps to jog my memory. Today was one such day, yet I also started to reminisce, and found myself thinking about one artist in particular, Hans Wijninga.

Hans walked into the gallery one day, portfolio in hand. He wanted to show me his work. Normally, this is a big no-no in art gallery protocol, yet since the young man was from out of town, the Netherlands to be exact, I decided to have a look. I was glad I did.

At the time, Hans was making large-scale photographs of ordinary events, people and people in places, photographed from some distance, and processed with some degree of blur. The blur gave the photos a somewhat painterly feel. Yet, there was something else about the photos that caught my eye, and that was the framing of the shots.

We gave Hans a show (the above photo was in that exhibit), shipped his work from his home, sold a piece to a well-known collector, shipped the rest back, and kept in touch for a couple years thereafter, after the gallery had closed. When we moved away, contact was lost, and just like a lot of other people and things, farming prioritized them out of my mind.

I googled Hans, found his website, and knew I had to share his work. It is both sublime and beautiful in its simplicity and treatment. Have a look, especially at 2004 and 2008.