Rob Niezen’s “Nocturnal Reflections”
Paintings

October 30 – November 30, 2019

Opening reception:
Friday, November 1 | 7:30 pm

Sponsored by Pat Cooke in Memory of Paul D. Cooke
 

Artist statement

“As a young boy it was comics that inspired me to draw, and art has been my passion ever since. In my observations of daily life, I explore the effects of light and reflections on contrast and colour harmony. With an eye for randomness I view the ordinary from extraordinary angles or at extraordinary moments. In my still-life and (urban) landscape oil paintings, I seek the drama, the exaggerated and the surprising in objects and places, offering viewers an alternative view of reality.

Over the past eight years, I have created a series of paintings that pay a testament to the vibrancy of the city at night: traffic lights, shop windows and neon signs are reflected and enhanced on rainy streets; a departure from ‘traditional’ landscape painting and from the landscape one sees around Bancroft. Gleaming reflections exaggerate the contrasts between deep darks and artificial lights. It is the same world as during the day, but stripped of its blandness. Colours explode, revealing the vitality of the urban surroundings and a society that is always on the go.”