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Suspended Moment XV

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Oceanic Systems serie · by vonMoerenburgh

Suspended Moment XV

Unique work on paper · Hahnemühle fine art paper, crystal glass pigments, airbrush application

$950

At the top of New Zealand the land runs out and two oceans meet. Not side by side. Head-on, from left and right, in a line of white water that runs from the point where they hit straight out to the horizon. XV is that collision at sunset. Most art resolves on the first look. This was built so it never does. On Hahnemühle paper the crystal glass pigments hold the reds and move the white, so the point where the two seas meet is somewhere different each evening. The Māori call this headland the place the spirits leave from. Every culture has one. This is what it looks like at the end of the day. XV is the last work in Oceanic Systems and the first in Barzakh. It closes one series and opens the next.

No payment now — the artist will contact you personally.

Details

Dimensions

40 × 20 cm

Weight

2 kg

Subject matter

Two waves coming at each other from left and right below Cape Reinga, meeting in a point, and a line of white water running from that point straight out to the horizon: the Tasman Sea and the Pacific colliding at sunset, red above, deep blue below

Medium

Hahnemühle fine art paper, crystal glass pigments, airbrush application

Suited for

BedroomLiving roomOffice

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From the studio

“Cape Reinga, the far north of New Zealand. You drive until the road stops, then you walk to a lighthouse, and below it the Tasman Sea and the Pacific come at each other from left and right and meet in a straight line that runs out into the ocean. I stood there at the end of the day and watched two seas hit each other and neither one win. Abel Tasman sailed past this cape in 1643 and named the islands off it; a Dutchman three hundred and eighty years later, standing on it, looking at the same water. For Māori this is where the spirits leave. I am not Māori and the story is not mine to tell. But I know what it is to stand at the edge of something and not want to go yet. XV is that. The last light, two oceans, and the line between them.”

vonMoerenburgh

Living with this work

Most art resolves on the first look. This was built so it never does. In the afternoon XV reads as a red sky over blue water. By evening the two white curls come forward and the collision is the whole picture. The collector who sees it every day will keep looking for which sea gives way. Neither does. That is what the work keeps giving back.

Where it lives

Room by room: where this work thrives, where it struggles, and exactly where to hang it.

Room fit

Warm, evening palette with a symmetrical centre. Position at 145 cm to centre on a white or pale neutral wall, 1 to 2 metres of viewing distance, and hang it centred on the wall or the furniture below it; the symmetry wants a middle. Natural daylight in the afternoon brings the reds forward; warm lamp light in the evening makes the white curls advance. Flat fluorescent light will kill it. Frame with UV-protective glass.

Strong fit

An end-of-day work for an end-of-day room. Position opposite or beside a window that gets afternoon light. Warm lamp light in the evening brings the seam forward. UV-protective glass.

Work size40 x 20 cm
Hang height (center)145 cm
Wall coverageFeature wall anchor
Ideal viewing distance1 - 2 m

About the artist

V

vonMoerenburgh

The Hague, The Netherlands

48,000 miles. Panama to New Zealand, Brazil to Hawaii. vonMoerenburgh was crossing the Pacific, then crossing it again, from a different angle. The ocean kept finding him. Eventually, he stopped leaving.

He came to art late. Thirty years in design, gaming, and publishing, then at 49, he started making art. The work is built on a digital foundation, finished by hand with crystal glass pigments that shift with the light. The same surface reads differently depending on where you stand and what the light is doing.

He always meant to go to art school. This is what happened instead.

www.vuvu.nl@joostvonm@vonmoerenburgh