Leo Reijnders — The Cloudknitter

Leo Reijnders’ ever-expanding artistic practice encompasses not only drawing, painting, and animation but also performance, curating, and radio-making. The artistic strategies he employs and the deliberately ambiguous positions he adopts as an artist challenge the conventions of the art world, navigating the boundaries between inside and outside, centre and fringe.

A good example is his pseudonym. De Wolkenbreier [The Cloudknitter] is the title of a painting on a musician friend’s garage door. Reijnders adopted it for his radio programme, making himself a character within his own work. He is also the curator who, in passing, uses the exhibition of his own work as an opportunity to organise a music and performance festival in St Petersburg. The dedicated radio producer who guides his guests in creating a live mental self-portrait. The animator who invited dozens of musicians and bands to compose a soundtrack for one of his animations, thereby creating an international digital festival. And the performer who seeks to collaborate with musicians to interpret the sound of the city as if it were a giant vinyl record. One constant always remains: positions shift, roles dissolve.

But at the heart of Reijnders’ practice lies the ever-expanding, fantastical world of drawings and paintings. Former M HKA director Flor Bex once remarked: “Leo Reijnders conveys a complex world full of ideas through his imagery. A world that emerges in small diary drawings and notes.
A world of nature, humans, and animals—yet placed in imagination-rich settings. Strange scenes unfold in water, on land, in the sky, and across the cosmos. […] Leo Reijnders’ oeuvre is filled with imagination, and with a fine sense of humour, he draws our attention to human behaviour and perspectives.”

In Reijnders’ work, humans, monsters, and animals share the same habitat. Within this joyful chaos, existential questions emerge: Where do we come from? Where are we going? And what on earth are we supposed to do in the meantime? The viewer becomes entangled in the colourful web of associations and imagination that he meticulously weaves onto canvas or paper. After all, isn’t getting lost infinitely more interesting than following the beaten path?

Preview on Thursday, March 27

With Radio Sessions: 20 Years of “Wolkenbreiers” at M HKA
During the weekends of April 6 / April 13 / April 20, 11:00 – 14:00