SLOPPY THERAPY is part of the digital group show THE ARTIST IS ONLINE. Digital Paintings and Sculpture in a Virtual World on view at KÖNIG GALERIE in Decentraland (36.100).

The play between surface, meaning and materiality is central to the work SLOPPY THERAPY. Starting with a canvas, often a found canvas, the artist tries to forget everything she knows about the canvas and instead explores the canvas as a simple object, appreciating it for its materiality.

De Joode works on the canvas in a sculptural way, the materials merge: paint is smeared, dripped or poured, the canvas itself is often cut, torn or crushed. Pigments, resin, glue or paint are poured over or applied by hand. The artist tries to achieve a dadaistic naivety that seeks to rejoice the canvas and its three-dimensional materiality.

Through the close-up, cropping and the abstract nature of the digitally reworked images, the finished paintings appear textured, so that the viewer is drawn to their apparent materiality and tactility. The way we look at art has changed in the digital age. These works were created during the spring lockdown. A moment when we could often only gaze at art, alone, on our screens zooming and scrolling over textures.

Rachel de Joode is a Dutch-born, Berlin-based multimedia artist. She mixes mediums, particularly those of photography, sculpture and most recently, painting. Her work bounces between the physical and the virtual, exploring the relationship between the three dimensional object and its two dimensional representation.

De Joode earned her diploma in time-based art from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. She was awarded the Deutsche Börse Residency at the Frankfurter Kunstverein in Frankfurt (2013) and the Sculpture Space residency (2012), as well as a residency at LMCC Governors Island (2013 – 2014) in New York. She has received funding from the Mondriaan fund, the Berliner Senat, the Prins Bernhard Cultuur Fonds and the Royal Dutch Embassy.

Her work has been internationally exhibited in group and solo shows, including the ICA in Philadelphia (USA); Henie Onstad Kunstsenter in Oslo (NO); ZKM in Karlsruhe (DE); the Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome (IL); Göteborg International Biennial for Contemporary Art (SE) Kunstverein Nürnberg (DE); Kunstfort Vijfhuizen (NL); Galerie Christophe Gaillard in Paris (FR); Interstate Projects in New York (USA); Higher Pictures in New York (USA).

De Joode currently teaches materialized photography at ECAL (École cantonale d'art de Lausanne).