'Red Light’ by Karel Dicker - 2023

Karel Dicker (Schimmert, 1989) is a life-long painter who grew up in an artist's household in the most southern part of the Netherlands. A difficult student, rebellious and headstrong, he still attended and finished art programs at St Lucas and the Maastricht Institute of Fine Arts.

The Lockdown - Still Lifes

Karel painted this series of still lifes during the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020/2021. Even though they depict abandoned tables full of liquor, cigarettes and even drugs, these lonely, expressionistic tableaus are bursting with a wild longing to celebrate the better things in life. They challenge you to look beyond those packs of smokes and half-emptied bottles of liquor. And when you do, they become portraits of omittance: where did the busy lives go that created these scenes? Missing are the people trapped in the restricting society of their own creation, endlessly longing for freedom, love and celebration. What’s left behind is the only remaining way to live: to numb, to forget and to atone. 

Karel lives and works in Maastricht, Netherlands.

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