The installation Rebis was part of the exhibition Polderlicht@home, light art and more at 15 (private) addresses in Amsterdam's Dapperbuurt. The work was installed at the house of the artist George Degenhart, resident of Reinwardtstraat 55-f in Amsterdam.

George Degenhart wanted to distance himself with his art from classical art forms such as portraits, landscapes, still lifes and biblical scenes. Over the years, he sought an ever-greater degree of abstraction with his works. His objects and paintings do not tell a story. It is not personal expression that interests him, but a universal emotion that applies to everyone. Various pieces from his collection of African statues and masks can be understood by a large group of people in the right context. The Congolese Bateke statues, for example, were not made as works of art, but as fetish images. They were made according to a fixed recipe. 

In her work, Doina Kraal examines the story, the history, the secret. The portrait, the landscape and also biblical scenes appear frequently in her work. In the work Rebis, she examines on the one hand abstraction, inspired by the work of George Degenhart and on the other hand other forms of abstraction, inspired by Degenhart's (figurative) African collection. The fact that Congolese statues were often filled with a magical, plant-based substance (Bonga), which was supposed to give the statue its mystical power, formed a guideline for the work Rebis.

The installation is made with MDF, glass, plexiglass, slide projection, duraclear X-ray print, chalk, LED and TL lighting, Congolese statue from the collection of George Degenhart.

Curated by Loes Diephuis & John Prop
Polderlicht@home, 2012
Photography Gert Jan van Rooij