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José van Gool
A representational artist, José van Gool is intrigued and inspired by the human nature. People in her paintings are content with their destiny, whether they are walking on the beach at the sunset, relaxing in cafés, waiting for the next subway train, or dancing. José loves her personages, and she brings their feelings into our lives without judging anyone.
José is receptive to colors. They dance in her head. Color is as important as the subject itself. The colors she chooses create the story to reveal the intimacy between a couple, the solitude of a woman waiting for a train or the love of a child for her doll.
The dynamic of the story is in the colors.
José loves without judgement. She looks into us, her fellows, with all her soul. At peace with herself, José immortalizes, but does not seek to change her subjects. She sees farther and deeper than most of us can and inspires the viewer to see like herself, past fear and desperation - into HOPE, LOVE and BELIEF.
Passion and Movement
José van Gool’s paintings pry into the relationship between color and movement. They follow, one to the next, a certain pattern. A solitary dancer, a pair of dancers, or a group of three or four are always the presumed focus of the composition. These subjects are women, strong women, with coal black hair. The red dresses they wear, revealing brief stretches of marble-carved shoulder, neck, and arm, suggest emotional music, a passionate sound that calls for vigorous movement. But these paintings inhabit a movement unique to van Gool, one she summons up through her dramatic charge of color.
The paintings develop resolutely from the top of the canvas to the bottom. At the top, the figures’ faces and upper torsos are either clearly defined or softly impressionistic, but they convey each time a sense of focus and readiness, perhaps of gravity. The downward movement, however, dissolves this clarity, and those dancing gowns break down into fields of color, maddening reds and oranges, so that what the viewer beheld at first seems to have sparked into an uncertain environment, more abstract and unknown, but more passionate as well. Van Gool’s mastery of color drives these emotional works, as the dancers she creates in effect lose themselves, consumed by the hot, dry matter of the world, like fallen, brittle leaves about to burst into flame.
Impressionist Inspiration
José van Gool’s paintings of impressionist inspirations and city impressions are playful, rich, and sometimes mournful gestures of a seductive world. The human figure, alone or existing with others, is the central force of each canvas. At times, the figures contrast sharply with the warm, misty backgrounds they are set against, and in other paintings, they melt into these backgrounds, seemingly absorbed. There is little notion of outside disturbances in the compositions. Instead, they dwell in self-contained worlds, nourished by color, comforting and sweetly strange to the viewer who studies them.
A series of these paintings includes women wearing hats and posing in washes of golden yellow, auburn, and brick red. They appear to look out and confront the world, but in each case the brim of the hat casts a shadow, and the true expression in each woman’s eyes is left in doubt, leaving an impression of coquettishness and mystery. In other pieces, the figures are walking, a mass of hazy color, sometimes deep, sometimes cool. In a bold shift, a group is walking straight on, coming right at the viewer. Van Gool also places her figures in cafés, sitting over coffee, or waiting in the cavernous rooms of train stations. These are everyday scenes, all of them, but the painter transforms them into dreamscapes, hypnotic and vast.
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