Tentoonstelling Voor de Kunst (De Ruiter) 1919

This poster, ‘Tentoonstelling Voor de Kunst (De Ruiter)’ was made by Bart van der Leck in a reductive, geometric style that reminds me of de Stijl. The image consists of flat planes of pure colour. Look closely and you can see how these colours are built up from simple geometric shapes. The poster’s surface is smooth, almost clinical. Everything is carefully placed, there's a real sense of deliberation in how the forms are arranged, almost like a puzzle. But instead of fitting together seamlessly, the shapes float. I keep coming back to those black, yellow and orange rectangles that suggest the form of a rider on horseback. Van der Leck’s earlier work was much more figurative, but he moved toward abstraction, much like his contemporary Piet Mondrian. Both artists were interested in the power of simple forms and colours. Like Van der Leck’s, my own work is often about trying to find a balance between intention and accident. There’s always more than one way to interpret an image, and that’s what makes art so engaging.