Sittard, Netherlands - Under the title 'Don’t do that any more', two years after his last solo presentation, Rik Meijers is given the opportunity to present an overview of his artistic oeuvre in Museum Het Domein.  Alongside the mystical portraits that are a recurrent feature in his work, Meijers will be presenting recent paintings and work never previously on public display, such as painted bottles and Polaroids.  Here, the artist is not only referring to low culture and unpretentious, salt-of-the-earth folk art, but to logos, secularized or not, and Art Brut.  On exhibition 20 January to 11 March, 2007.

Fabulous figures still populate the world of Rik Meijers, (1963), who lives and works in Sittard.  It is a domain where martyrs, prophets, mystics and gurus rub shoulder with pin-ups, vagrants, hippies and members of his family.  The projection of their images on top of and over each other is the basis of the canvases onto which strata of paint are literally layered, along with less traditional materials like pitch and feathers, bottletops, shards of glass and beads.  These collective personalities are shown in close up and embody alien (de)formations, and the capricious, illogical impact that reality exercises on the individual.  This, however, the artist accomplishes without adopting a determinist position: the works are impossible to place in a background or context and elude judgment.

For Meijers, representing and animating his protagonists is what it’s all about.  With this, the artist does not liberate his figures from the margins of society to place them at its centre, but transports the viewer to ‘the edge’ where he or she is suddenly catapulted into the role of freak, to be feasted upon by myriads of eyes.  Meijers literally gives the images 'body' by his use of materials, in particular fashioning faces that have escaped the margin and surface through the layers to loom suddenly before the viewer.  His paintings are almost exorcisms that evoke images that we intuit, but cannot know.

A catalogue/artist’s book with an introduction by Dominic van den Boogerd accompanies the exhibition.  The book is inspired by fanzines that emanate the same mood as Meijers’ idiosyncratic choice of themes and materials.

During the opening on Friday 19 January, Rik Meijers will perform with the band Chomain Vasser.  This will be followed by a concert evening with Chomain Vasser in the context of the new events series Sound-Zone organized by Museum Het Domein, and which devoted to the connection between the fine arts and pop music, a key aspect of the 2007 exhibition programme.

Visit Museum Het Domein at : www.hetdomein.nl/