Dan Geesin and Barend van Hoek (Netherlands) "Trouble shooting: should a -hypothetical- problem crop up in a -hypothetical- company then the troubleshooter takes care of the situation. With intelligence and perceptive powers honed like a razors, matters are thoroughly analyzed, dissected and collated, put back together again and the problem is solved. Exit troubleshooter. Problem: a couple of cubic metres of board arrive at the museum, large sheets of waste material. Trouble-shooting: two artists arrive at the museum. Ingenuity and imaginative powers at the ready like loaded pistols in a holster, intelligence marshalled and perception on the alert. Dan Geesin and Barend van Hoek are two artists who on occasion work together. When the opportunity presents itself. Otherwise they both work in their own extremely personal oeuvres. Geesin specializes in the medium of film and drawing, while Van Hoek paints, draws and models. What is conspicuous is that they both have a love of giving a completely different slant to the material they work with. A film isn’t just simply made, the ways in which -for example- Geesin uses animation techniques are untraditional, if not/even strange. A painting isn’t just simply painted; Van Hoek’s ways of applying paint are unconventional. This is one of the qualities that are so striking about these two artists - they experience their art through the material. It is precisely this quality that links them. It leads to extraordinary works of art, large space-filling installations full of figures -or rather creatures of all kinds- as well as indefinable objects that though familiar, don’t actually exist. The viewer also participates - literally as a moving element, metaphorically by letting thoughts flow freely. The more viewers, the more moving elements, the more thoughts and subsequently many more interpretations. Geesin and Van Hoek have made a specialization of using thick board in its natural state. In their eyes it is a medium that is both the raw material and the image itself with its own visual qualities. They know how to affectively bend these two characteristics to their will. It is a material from which the finished work must be freed so that, ultimately, the rich possibilities of the material can be presented, be experienced, through the work. After all what else can you do with a pile of board? Exactly, call in Geesin and Van Hoek. Trouble shooting. " * Due to circumstances Barend van Hoek will not be able to perform. Text: Edwin Jacobs. From: Timeless Paper, Leiden 2002 © Compres Publishers Ltd