Statement

Robert Roests practice of painting is visually rooted in both the contemporary world of new media and the history of painting. His work is structured in series of 5-10 paintings. By approaching the work via a serial method he is able to explore the possibilities of his themes from different angles, deploy multiple styles, and keep his work open and not be pinned down on a particular idea or perspective. This structured method is not about artistic freedom, it has everything to do with conceptualizing ideas, thoughts and themes that Roest wants to address in his work.

In his work Roest explores phenomenon like perception, projection, illusion and representation. It is about the interrelationship between reality and your senses. Briefly, all his work revolves around the questions ‘can you trust your senses?’ ‘Can you believe your eyes?’ The paintings are much about the physical experience of seeing. They are about the impact images have on us, not at least the images we see online. Even deeper they are about the impact our eyes have on images, since an image doesn’t fundamentally change over time, but our ways of seeing, and our views, does.