08 “FIGURATIVE ABSTRACTION”

Abstract compostions, based on the “golden section”, as well as other abstract symbols apeared in my drawings and paintings from 2003: the swastika (the ancient symbol of life and innocence in the very traditions of the Indian Subcontinent), the cross, the star of David, the yin-yang symbol, the sanskrit AUM sign.

My old fascination – in the seventies – with organic forms, re-appeared, this time with a conscious search for the golden section in nature, while I let the inherent beauty of this nature speak more than the formal division of a surface into harmonious parts – admittedly anecdotal. Drawn towards natural or organic forms I found myself doing on a large scale what the introductory books on the Golden Section did: superimposing the golden section design onto the natural phenomena of which the proportion came close to Phi.

Robbert Ruigrok, The Ear of Tobias. Oil on canvas, 2006. 101×76cm.

Robbert Ruigrok, Earth and Innocence II, Flipped, 2004. Oil on Canvas, 101 x 76 cm.

My interest in organic form went back to 1976 when I already made an etching showing a profile of a lady surrounded by gras, with in perspective in the foreground her ear.

In Dec 2006 after I made a lot of photographs of ears of friends and family, I combined my fascination about the ear shape, the yin-yang sign and the golden section in ‘One Earth, One Sound’ (Dec. 2006)

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‘One Earth, One Sound’, Phase III. Dec. 2006. Oil on Canvas, 100 cm x 100 cm.

‘One Earth, One Sound’, Phase II. Dec. 2006. Oil on Canvas, 100 cm x 100 cm.

‘One Earth, One Sound’, Phase I. Dec. 2006. Oil on Canvas, 100 cm x 100 cm.

Robbert Ruigrok with ‘One Earth, One Sound’, Dec. 2006. Oil on Canvas, 1 x 1 m. Private Collection.