B.C. EPKER press

The dreamer doesn't get lost
by Mischa Andriessen

"I hate all things that are not like me
and all the things I haven't got are god to me"
Arshile Gorky

The text by Gorky I used once as a device for a series of observations and meditations which I connected to eachother and denominated it 'superclose'. Furthermore I tried to keep every suspicion of a connection far from me; they were snapshots which I linked by placing them underneath eachother at random. That sentence of Gorky evoked something in me, I felt a certain alliance with the artist from which I only knew that he was Armenian and had committed suicide (what it meant to be Armenian I couldn't suspect at all at that time). His best-known and maybe most beautifull work is called "The liver is the cock's comb". That is an observation as well, although it is an incomprehensible one. In spite of all my good intentions, it was a strange and even a wrong choice to put this text above my 'cutouts from reality'. Reality is played out anyway in my work, meaning that I'm trying to make my work more realistic than reality itself. As known it has serious shortcomings.

This text is not about Arshile Gorky nor about myself, but still I needed this step to get through to the work of B.C. Epker, which in itself is already difficult enough, because Epker never makes it easy for the spectator of his pictorial work. However in contrast with the paintings of Arshile Gorky, his drawings, aquarelles and paintings do seem to be accesible. Gorky's colours and forms are a vehement transformation of a reality, because even though Gorky's starting point is already subjective, the result in the end is purely personal, which means perceptable but never understandable. In Epker's work that's completely different. We recognize the characters, the dreamfigures, the animals, the landscapes in which they perform. The symbolism sticking on to them is not unfamiliar to us either; we see the heroism in his bull Bertus and in the proud pelican which he created for the cover of the rockband Hobson's Choice. He evidently shows us his facinations, his roots, the stories of grandfather, the corner-figures of old tiles, the pert or otherwise country girls, the nature of his Friesland. It's evident that his work calls up reminicense to items of every day use, pots and pans, wall tiles, from the times that there was still attention for decoration, when beauty and usefulness were still inseperable. Still (and this will not be a surprise) is that only the revealed breeding ground, a stolen glimpse at the atelier of the artist. He puts his memories, his examples so to speak on the table and says: 'Look what I'm doing with this'. Transformation indeed; man-kind vanishes in the dream but remains visible as it goes in dreams; recognition repeatedly, but alienation just as well, because to this context we're not accustumed to. That's why there is a constant use of mangled language and the deliberately written mistakes. We know what is intended, however, it is not standing there, which again evokes the question whether we actually understand what is meant. Epker puts different layers in his work on purpose, which seem to push one another aside constantly. The choice for one of them is impossible because they exist next to and thanks to eachother.

Sometimes the dream seems to rule, sometimes reality, but in the end they are equally strong, just like when we wake up from sleeping we often don't remember whether something was dream or reality. And, of course, thats exactly what the work comprehends; you went through it anyhow, whether
it was imagination or not. Furthermore the works together finally make a pact; in the figures former characters always come back again, if not in their physical quality then still in their symbolism. Appearance is not deceptive - not here. Who follows his intuition will comprehend the work rather quickly. As children comprehend things instinctively. I know that B.C. Epker, just like me, loves Lucebert, the affinity is recognizable; sometimes in the shapes,
in the fancyfulness of the lines and in te sketched scenes, but this is based mainly on coincidence. It is the accurate spontaneity that they have in common, not language or handwriting. The fact that various characters return repeatedly is not laziness. Who looks carefully will see that they assume differrent appearances, or, in other words, represent different symbolism repeatedly; the milkmaids are by turns respectable or lecherous, the bulls sturdy or vulnerable, lost. The dreamer however (and Epker is one) never gets lost because he knows that his world perhaps may be not be the real for some, but is still so evidently recognizable. Who opens oneself, like Epker does, for the secret laws which prevail there, knows that in this landscape can be wandered endlessly without breadcrump has to be scattered. The artist (and the spectator who knows the same laws) always comes home because he started at home. He can only get lost if he relies too much upon is knowledge and skills and too little on his intuition. The work always has a meaning. Because it starts without and is not scared to gain new experiences along the way. Recognition is there, at the first look already, it is only a matter of mastering the alienation.

Translation by Berber Epker