Roeki Symons is fascinated by everyday little things and events that often hide conflicts arising from deeper layers and larger movements. These are very cursory phenomena that can only be observed from the corner of your eyes. Roeki Symons makes use of many media to illuminate these movements: painting, drawing, photography, video and installations.
A recent installation is NO SIDE EFFECTS. The whole floor of a large room is covered with a 10cms thick layer of blister packs of medicine. A large photograph on the wall shows a row of five bathtubs with a woman who is surrendering herself to the water. The photograph is laminated in PVC and looks like a large blister pack with the woman as the medicine.
Is surrendering then the medicine where all others did not bring the wished cure or desired happiness? Or is it rather a surrendering to the fact that for some things there simply is no cure?
DOWNTOWN is a comment on living in a big city with all its complications. The modern dream of liberated living has turned into a nightmare for many people in postmodern cities. “The metropolises of the world are turning more and more into uninhabited city centers and peripheries, marked by rampant, cancer-like growth. Whether the praises of pedestrian malls are sung or awards given for successful city traffic planning, the sheltering square or the inviting circle is in the main merely decorative scenery for stores and shopping by day, but deserted and dangerous after nightfall”. (Schirmacher: Philosophy of the city – Dream or nightmare).
DOWNTOWN is an installation of photographs of buildings made of blister packs of medicine, with their lights turned on during the night to mask the dangers and give a romantic view. Everything seems peaceful until you take a good look at the material.
COMPOSITION is made of several objects and is relating to the painting ‘Rhythm of a Russian Dance’ - 1918, now in MoMA - by Theo van Doesburg who, together with Piet Mondriaan and Gerrit Rietveld, was one of the founders of the group ‘De Stijl’ (connected to The Bauhaus Group and later Dadaism) that had such a large influence on the principles of modern architecture.
COMPOSITION I,II,II,IV in PG Art Gallery are also made of blister packs of medicine.
These 3 installations are comments on city life and urban planning and on the attraction that big cities have on people with the promise to make life more prosperous in a economic, creative and autonomous sense.
