World Fine Art Professionals and their Key-Pieces, 215 - André Korevaar

World Fine Art Professionals and their Key-Pieces, 215 – André Korevaar
The universe of André Korevaar is filled with many animals: fish, birds, deer, horses, lions and different kinds of people, including healers, shamans, Indians, kings, temple knights, flamenco singers, hermaphrodites, Jesus’ and Buddhas. In that universe, that cosmic space, fly spaceships.

It seems like the world of Jeroen Bosch, I tell him, when I talk to him in his studio in the Old North of Rotterdam. He agrees that he has a connection with the Middle Ages. “I feel at home in pre-Renaissance art, when people were not portrayed as ‘realistic’ people, as in the Renaissance, but rather as ‘symbols’ of people, referring to the medieval cosmic (religious) ) reality. I also find the ideas and works from hermetics particularly interesting. For example the philosopher Trismegistus. He and his followers had a lot of knowledge of mysticism, cosmology, magic, astrology and alchemy.” I hear the sound of waves crashing on the coast. It comes from a speaker in the room. “This is how I get nature into my house.”

Deer
He shows a book full of medieval emblematic drawings. “Very interesting, the drawings, and also the design. In that spirit I create my current work, translate it into my contemporary reality.” He intuitively absorbs all kinds of images that he incorporates into his works. As an example of his way of working, he shows me a folder full of deer. “I draw deer until I have the deer completely in my fingers. However, the deer does not become an independent theme, but I can then fit my deer into a story. They then become figures in a theater piece. Then there will also be more colors. There may be additional people and other animals, such as birds. Doubles may also appear, a person as a child and as an old man. “

Awareness
André Korevaar plays with his fictional figures. “I play with the fact that I am a human being. Man has many layers or dimensions. I show how you can experience life and being human.” When the work is finished, it will receive a mostly English-language title such as ‘Alien Sacrifice’,’Food experiment of the Gods’, ‘Shadow watching you’ and ‘Dance of a Deer’. “The title of a work is important to me, it is the ‘smell’ of the painting. I want to show what it refers to for me, what the intention or the feeling it evokes is for me.” Incidentally, such a title is not yet definitive. On a work he had started this week, ‘Present for the Gods’, he painted an extra character: a baby. “Only then did I know that it is probably about enlightenment. The title could change with that. “

In Korevaar’s universe, the earthly and the cosmic are integrated. “We are consciousness, consciousness acts as if it were the person, we live in a theater or, if you like, in a video game. A game that is both real and a dream. At the deepest level the individual human is consciousness. It is the feeling of life: I exist and experience. The consciousness equals nature equals life. “

Shadow watching the Zoo
He illustrates it on the basis of a number of works that he pulls out. In ‘Baby Jesus Powersuit’, Jesus sits in a spaceship derived from the meditating Buddha posture. There are three versions, in the third version and with large letters ANIMALI, there is a kind of heater in the spacecraft that acts as an engine. He takes out one of the many blue file folders, completely filled with all kinds of works. A man on a horse posing with the title ‘Posing Grandfather’, a dancing grandma, ‘Granny Dancing’, a horse with a nimbus, a halo, around his head, ‘Cosmic Horses’, a hermaphrodite in ‘Shadow watching the Zoo’ , two shadows that watch, ‘Love between two spirits’, a woman with an older man, ‘Form of Love’, a man, a woman and a person in a guardhouse, ‘In Unity we grow Home’.

Carlos Casteneda
In addition to the literature on alchemy and Hermetism, Korevaar has also undergone the influence of books by Carlos Casteneda, the American writer and anthropologist of Peruvian descent. He wrote about ‘Tonal’ and ‘Nagual’, derived from the esoteric school of Don Juan Matus. Matus assumes that the universe consists of two parallel worlds, the material world (Tonal, the world of agreements) and the immaterial world (Nagual, the world of the will). We communicate with our body in the first material world. To get to know the immaterial world you need to develop your ’second consciousness’ or clairvoyance. “It’s a magic area. An area that moves in the larger void of the ‘Inorganic’, a non-organic space. It is the space of intelligence. At the core we are spiritual, that is related to our cosmic being. I believe it is quite possible that ancient myths should be taken literally and that we are descended from / created by aliens. Look at the color shades in our eyes, they are like the universe. Everything is cosmic, everything is universe. “

The art of Joseph Beuys appeals to him. “Not only because of the works themselves, but especially because of his investigative basic attitude: ‘What does it mean to live?’ ‘What is the nature of all this?’ He creates an atmosphere of wonder and always comes back to this point of departure. “
André Korevaar has no key work. Every work could be a key piece, he says. “I could make a series of any drawing if I wanted.”

The artistic path
André Korevaar is active in art from high school on. “Actually from the beginning, from the age of 12. At that time I was already painting. At the end of high school I made a collection of poems that was published, won a prize with it and went to Spain to write more poems. I stayed there for two years.” Back in the Netherlands, he went on a one-year film course. He learned to write a scenario, use the camera and put together real films. He made three short films with a friend. “We won another prize with one of them, in The Hague at the National Video Festival. However, the process went too slowly for me. Halfway through the making I got a lot of new ideas. ‘Drawing and painting go faster’, I thought. I was also busy with dance. I also danced myself, I did that for four / five years. With a few friends I made various dance performances. Then I focused entirely on painting.” He had his first exhibition in 1986. He has been a full-time artist for 35 years.

Does he have a nice philosophical conclusion? He has. “What I actually paint is an expression of consciousness. Awareness is not SOMETHING. It is not visible or even felt, has no form. I can’t see it because it’s me. Just like a candle cannot see its own light. I can only show what appears before my mind’s eye, what goes by. As the world shows itself to me. Themes come and go. The literal meaning of my work does not have my attention. I only note the words and images of what goes through my mind. “
Images
1) EDEN, A4, 2) MOTHERS IN LOVE, A4, 3) ALL IS LOVE, A4, 4) MATERIE DIE WIJ EN LICHAAM IS, A4, 5) EXPLORER, A4, 6) ALCHEMISTA, 7) COSMIC HEART, A4, 8) KING OF NOTHING, A4, 9) TRANSITION OF FLESH, A4, 10), André Korevaar, portrait

 

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