Marcel van Eeden

The artist finds the motifs that serve as the basis for his drawings on walks through second-hand bookstores, archives, libraries, and flea markets. The fact that these newspapers, books, and photographs—usually black and white reproductions—all come from the time before his birth on November 22, 1965 indicates van Eeden’s intense occupation with death and “non-existence”—everything here revolves around the time before he was born. Not the “no longer,” but the “not yet” is central to his drawings. In this way, hundreds of small format works have emerged which impressively underscore the artist’s self-imposed guidelines, not least due to the repeated use of black/white contrasts and the usually standardized format of 14 x 19 cm or 19 x 28 cm.

While at the start of his career van Eeden tended to make individual drawings, in recent years he has focused on series, where the components develop their impact on the beholder especially in combination with one another. The drawings from the series seem to be illustrations of a narrative that is partially based in historical facts and partially based in fiction. Like film stills, the almost photo-realistic images show figures and locations with a captivating urgency, figures and locations that are strangely still, and yet could come to life at any moment. By using black charcoal, van Eeden achieves the characteristic chiaroscuro effect in his work.