Mini Feauture in the Readytex Art Gallery
Kennteth Flijders
Starting on the 18th of December, the main hall of the Readytex Art Gallery will be dedicated to work from the Surinamese artist Kenneth Flijders.
This special feature is one in a series of many Mini Features organized by the Gallery for the purpose of giving each artist their own individual turn in the spotlight.
With an art career spanning a period of more than thirty years, and great love and dedication for art, this skilled and experienced artist is definitely deserving of this special attention.
Kenneth Flijders started his art education at the New School for Visual Arts, now better known as the Nola Hatterman Art Institute, at a young age. In 1990 he continued his education with a two year period at the Edna Manley College for Visual and Performing Arts in Jamaica.
In the beginning of his career he painted primarily landscapes, but over the years his experience and his interest expanded to new and broader areas of attention.
The artist is still known to paint wonderful landscapes often involving Surinamese forest rich locations in realistic colors, but now those are just a small part of his versatile work.
Large abstract and figurative paintings in striking bright colors, paintings where fibers obtained from palm trees lend an interesting texture to the surface and even very unique prints in which those same palm fibers have been used as a pressing template, are some of the artist’s more recent art expressions.
With confident and bold strokes of acrylic paint in fascinating color contrasts, the artist manages time and time again to give his own unique signature to all the work he creates.
According to the artist, the freedom to experiment is of great importance to his expressiveness and he prefers not to limit himself to any particular subject or style. “I paint about whatever I see around me; I want to be free and if something makes an impression on me, I want to capture it in my work”.
Since recently, Kenneth Flijders also experiments with natural pigments obtained from the mahogany tree. With this home-made “mahogany extract” the artist manages to create an exceptional effect in for example the tree trunks in his paintings, but he also uses these natural pigments for other experiments on canvas as well as on paper.
Kenneth Flijders also has a special affinity for antiquities and other elements from old Surinamese architecture, and is extremely concerned about the thoughtless destruction of old buildings in the city of Paramaribo. On many occasions he has managed to save old door panels and windowpanes from the garbage dump and with the help of some paint and a great deal of artistic skill, they were given new life as extraordinary pieces of art. By doing so the artist hopes in some way to contribute to the preservation of important historical elements from our typical Surinamese architecture.
This Mini Feature on art by Kenneth Flijders in the Readytex Art Gallery can be visited from the 18th until the 30th of December during the regular opening hours of the Gallery. The Readytex Art Gallery is open Monday thru Friday from 8:00 am until 16:30 pm and on Saturday’s from 8:30 am until 13:30 pm. The Readytex Art Gallery is located on the Maagden straat 44 upstairs, in the Readytex department store building.
Team Readytex Art Gallery
Kenneth Flijders