Exhibition Text & Interview

In the work of Koen Doodeman metaphor becomes an essential apparatus through which our nebulous human subjectivity can be grasped.

Doodeman’s work surveys a glissade between an image and its carrier. It investigates shifts between concrete symbol/signal and decorative abstraction as well as the latent potential of forms between the two to communicate over long distances or be obscured in proximity. In this way, Doodeman creates work through which we can turn inwards and examine our own interpretive mechanisms. As we engage with his bold strokes of intersecting colour we are presented with immersive, interwoven overlays of fabric reminiscent of refracting light and dancing geometry, triggering a dynamism between image and surface. Seams and stitches create a textured patina that grounds the work in its own physicality whilst bestowing considerable visual depth.

Using the tale of St. Veronica we can come to understand his investigations of image and carrier: Emperor Tiberius tasks Veronica with finding Jesus so that he might be cured of Leprosy. She finds him, but he is already en route to Golgotha. Out of sympathy she cleans the blood from his face with her veil and to her astonishment his image is imprinted on the cloth, even the cloth alone cures the emperor. The nature of this artefact is disputed, forming the basis of an investigation: Whether one can portray god, that god in this case allowed it or whether Jesus himself existed within the veil. For Doodeman, This “Vera-Icon” or “True-Image” is a turning point connecting opposites: image as illusion of reality and material itself. In weaving and patchwork image and carrier are indistinct, oscillating between the two: one foot in reality another in illusion.

Doodeman’s practice embodies a thirst for liminal moments, producing work in which these cusps can be felt: A moment of transportation between immersion in another reality as he adds colour and forms – to the moment the work becomes a window into it. Much like the mountain studies of the cubist Cézanne, his work involves perpetual reinvestigation of perception. As such, encountering his work leaves us in a dynamic state of examination, constantly discovering new relations, equations and proportions. Therefor, NON RADAR represents all that is untraceable, the negation of straightforward navigation developed through modernity. Consequently, Doodeman’s work invites speculation: from where are his forms derived?

The Zouaves presented in his drawings stem from those same characters represented by Van Gogh. They carry the “Zouave” non-identity, ascribed to those that support wars outside their country. These figures embody a similar unmooring of meaning, their amorphous allegiances not rooted in nation. Even the meanings of the flags under which they serve are formed contextually: One flag atop another represents a conflict of nations, displaying all flags at once is a sign of celebration. By the same token, Doodeman creates work that unravels and playfully contests that which was once stable, where footholds for contradictions coexist.


Here through the act of looking, we examine ourselves as we traverse the vibrant crossroads he has laid.