Menu began as a series of experiments in a sketchbook. Using meat and fish cut from local supermarket advertising flyers, I created small collages on blank white pages. The poor print quality of the flyers—the muted colours, imperfect registration and cheap paper—gave the images an oddly artificial appearance, making the products feel less like food and more like abstract forms.

These modest sketchbook studies later became the starting point for large-scale oil paintings. Rather than simply reproducing the collages, I used them as a laboratory for exploring the possibilities of oil paint itself. Thin washes diluted with turpentine create almost watercolour-like passages, while heavily built-up paint introduces texture and relief. Matte and glossy surfaces coexist within a single composition, as in the reflective sheen of sardine tins, allowing the material qualities of the paint to become part of the subject.

The series investigates how far the language of oil painting can be pushed while maintaining the illusion of collage. Every torn edge, shadow and paper fragment is carefully painted by hand, creating images that appear assembled from cut paper but are, in fact, entirely painted. This deliberate deception blurs the boundary between original and reproduction, handmade and printed image.

At the same time, Menu explores the shifting line between realism and abstraction. The recognisable fragments of meat and fish are suspended within simplified, often ambiguous backgrounds that detach them from their original commercial context. Removed from their function as advertising, these everyday images become studies of colour, texture, composition and perception.

Menu
2006—2007
oil painting series on cotton
various sizes: all paintings are 70 × 70 × 2 cm, apart of:
Sardines, 30 × 35 × 1,5 cm
Mince Meat, 73 × 85 × 2 cm