Artists

Title: MELON - 'COORTES JACKPOT' Series
Year: 1990 - 2024
Medium: Photo Print on Dibond/Plexi
Available Size(s): 43 x 43 cm
(other sizes available on request up to 120x120cm within the Limited Editions)
Edition: Limited
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LADY LUCK
It always struck Peter, looking at the fruit in the jackpot machine, how vivid and appealing they were depicted but on closer inspection the dimensions seemed odd where for instance the lemon was much bigger then the bunch of grapes and the piece of melon, so much smaller then the orange. Just like a pop art work by Oldenburg who played with these dimensions as well but later on when Peter discovered the still lives by Adriaen Coorte he also discovered an odd use of dimensions in the way he painted the fruits and the sizes of some of them for instance, his berries look larger then a real life bunch of berries (gooseberries or red-currents), all or most of them painted against a dark or black background.
When Peter discovered the book: Secret Knowledge (rediscovering the lost techniques of the old masters) by David Hockney it seem to come full circle since Hockney supposed a theory about the old masters use of lenses (Huygens) and the Camera Obscura made the jumble of sizes an all too familiar feeling. And so we return to the 21st Century and again depicting fruit in a very simple way with a Hasselblad camera against a black background guided Peter’s hand the same way the old masters used their brushes to depict their still life’s while the way the photo’s are displayed in light-boxes or printed on glossy paper fixed on Dibond and covered with shiny plexiglass relives the excitement of the swing of the arm of the slot machine when at random the fruits will be displayed before your eyes 🍋🍐🍊🍇🍉🍒

The exciting promise of hitting the jackpot every time you jank the handle on the slot machine but never quite make it since so often one spends much more than one will ever earn, but lady luck is a cool seductress and one gets easily addicted to the promise of great riches.

The still life depiction of fruits has a very solid tradition in Dutch art and has taken off especially in the 17th century. Adriaen Coorte was the master in depicting the simple beauty of a bunch of berries a peach or a strawberry on an often black background. Inspired by Coorte and other Dutch still life artists Peter Gramberg merged his love for casino’s with the classical depiction of fruit in the still life tradition to twist and turn it by playing with the dimension just like the fruits in a one armed bandit slot machine or in the pop art tradition of a Claes Oldenburg’s work of art with it’s huge elevated blown up larger then life size.

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