Paul de Reus
Den Haag, NL, 1963 Works and lives in Amsterdam
Paul de Reus studied design at the Academie Minerva in Groningen and the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht, The Netherlands. His work is displayed in a large number of public places. In the Netherlands, De Reus is represented by Galerie Ton de Boer in Amsterdam.
The life-size (often wooden) sculptures of Paul de Reus stand motionless, and usually without any clear reference to their surroundings. The introvert characters often miss a limb, or even their head. They sometimes wear real clothes – or the person has disappeared altogether and only the clothes remain. De Reus also makes drawings, photographs and objects in addition to, or in combination with his sculptures.
The somewhat clumsy human figures are clearly not made of real flesh and blood, but in spite of this they seem accessible due to the naive visual language that is used. They serve more as allegories for the recurring themes in the work of De Reus, for example the relationship between men and women, sexuality, love, animals and the boundaries between dreams and reality. Seemingly lost in thought, they create both alienation and recognition.
Paul de Reus at the opening of Beyond Tradition