The Atomic Number, Murals Inc gallery. Rotterdam, 2023
This is part of my double mural in an exhibition organized by Murals Inc. in Rotterdam, curated by Marleen van Wijngaarden.
The whole universe consists of energy irregularly distributed in space. Each chemical element of this universe has a certain set of chemical properties, and only the atomic number of its particles determines the properties of the element. The work is about the weight of things, about the life of things and about what happens inside them and between them.
However, in the current day and age where recognizability and intelligibility have become important values within the cultural spectrum, there are still many, or more and more, artists engaged in the production of abstract contemporary mural art. What is striking here is that, even within outdoor mural art, a (young) generation of street artists focuses on abstract representation. What motivates them to choose abstract imagery? What are their sources of inspiration? And what are their own (authentic) starting points?
The title ‘The Atomic Number‘ refers to the mother of all abstractions. Abstraction in computing is closely related to abstraction in mathematics through their common focus on building abstractions as objects, but is also related to other notions of abstraction used in other fields such as (wall) art