Rest a While

Hand-Signed, and numumbered in pencil by the artist. Bert VREDEGOOR (Deventer 1956) Bert Vredegoor trained at the Academy of Visual Arts, Arnhem. The works of Bert Vredegoor are best described as 'contemporary icons'. They are silent meditative sources of power. Objects of attention and devotion. A painting by Bert Vredegoor is sparse, but not poor. In fact, when viewed up close, the image reveals a rich structure. Layer after layer of paint has been built up and scraped off. The painter's concentration on his work manifests itself as a purification process. Again and again a work is assessed, what is too much is removed, after which a new layer is added. Bert Vredegoor seeks the optimum balance between richness and sobriety, between tone and color, between rhythm and melody. Titles of works, such as 'See the moon', 'The trees' and 'Bare sky', indicate the spectrum within which Bert Vredegoor moves as an artist. It is the terrain of the associative, the intuitive, the archetype, the religious and the mythical. To explore this terrain, he makes use of a very original visual language that is whimsical, decorative, geometric, ornamental, direct and sign-like in character. Sometimes Bert Vredegoor uses ancient symbols with mythical meanings to give a work a certain interpretation and make it clear to the viewer.