Grasping hands, bleeding feet and a lot of dirt: Dutch artist Co Westerik’s paintings are weird, uncomfortable, close-cropped things.
The first work you see in this late painter’s (1924-2018) show of late paintings is a view from behind of a man shaving. It’s an incredible painting. A giant, monstrous hand bends a head forward, keeping the skin taught while a fist drags a razor across it. You’re so close to the scene you can almost smell the lather. It’s a violent, aggressive work, as is most of his art.
Thick male hands grasp at delicate, veined female ones repeatedly. You spot a woman outside through a curtain, fingers poke into soil, needles are pushed into naked torsos, brains leak out of heads. Creepy, bleak stuff.
It feels like the hazy, dusty work of an angry, lonely old man. An angel reaches for a figure’s soul in one work, a faceless naked woman bends over in another: it’s end-of-life thoughts, death and sex, lust and burial.
His style is naïve and clear, a palette of browns and blues that are flesh and deathly at the same time. Some works here are weak, but this show has an aura, a pervasive feeling of dread and death that hangs over you long after you’ve walked away.
