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There are, however, two types of illusions. There is the illusion that relates to reality: the trompe l’œil, the illusion which deceives the senses and which makes it possible for a work of art (say, a painting) to claim to be something real instead of something artificial. A landscape painting pretends to be a landscape, but actually it merely consists of pigments on canvas. An abstractly formulated idea is not the idea, but its expression.
Annerel is only indirectly preoccupied with this sort of illusion. But at the heart of his work, there is a strange paradox that is indeed important: the more something resembles reality, the greater the illusion; the more successful the work emulates reality, the more successful its artificiality.
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Annerel's works present themselves as shiny and transparent, but actually they are cunning and shrewd. They pose as abstract works of art; their link with reality, which is founded on illusions, therefore seems less strong—and consequently less problematic. Actually, the works are blow-ups of details from reality. (Annerel's use of the diminutive term “scale-models” to refer to his work is yet another form of deception.) Though this move may seem to bring the work closer to reality, it is neutralized by yet another strategy: by borrowing his motifs from existing images and photographs, the artist creates a sort of in-between level—an extra step that once more distances the work from reality. In this way, art and reality are engaged in a constant play of attraction and repulsion, a game that is even intensified by our hesitating between recognition (the belief in the illusion of that which is depicted) and near recognition (i.e. the recognition of the material art work as such).
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It's like standing with your nose against the wall. You can see the wall, yet at the same time you cant. You can see its colour, its structure, but the wall itself remains hidden. This brings to mind another situation: it's possible to focus so hard on something, that you no longer know what you are focussing on—the image in your mind does not become clearer, rather it tends to become blurred. It's like when you concentrate very hard on a particular thought, and as a result you lose it, like it detaches itself from you. Actually, blurriness need not be the contrary of clarity: it can also be an extension of clarity—an emphatic clarity that results from an utterly consequent form of thinking that causes the clarity to evaporate.
Installation view HANDMADE
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