The work of Willem Oorebeek (Pernis, 1953) is largely based on the field of tension between the individual and the public domain. Oorebeek uses the medium of ‘printed matter’ to make manifestations to and in the public domain, and the way in which the individual relates to it, known in inimitable ways and, if necessary, polarized. In a seemingly dry formalization of the organizational form of printed matter, he analyzes the mechanisms of visual communication and forms new constellations in the perspective of individual perception.
The procedures he employs which generally involve his manual processing of material through lithography − often lead to a delay in perception that allows questions regarding the position of the viewer (as an individual) to arise. In various publications, the circulation of images and ‘messages’ in his work becomes an unpredictable (nor easy to read) resonance of repeated afterimages, like echoes in an endless stream of self-reproducing mechanisms. The book is a telling example of this, and the partnership he has established for it with Belgian artist Joëlle Tuerlinckx is a prime example of the absorption into a collective (temporary) form of organization he has sought since his student days.
