Life and death are inseparable. Although they may seem opposite, they rather complement each other. One cannot be defined without the other and Aaron van Erp (1978) was already fully aware of this at an early age. For example, take his untitled painting of 1997, which is mainly executed in black and red, the colours of death and life. The canvas is filled with theatrical wings, such as a gigantic red sun that seems to be derived from the pictorial language of the Aztecs, three smirking skeletons and a nocturnal street that is illuminated from within the houses. Yet the attention is especially caught by the activity in the foreground. A grim reaper, clad in a moon-coloured suit and a Mexican hat steals the show, busy with keeping the natural cycle going. A giant scorpion lies on the sacrificial stone and the next victim is already presenting itself in the shape of a dangerous reptile that is creeping along. Life exists by the grace of death alone. That is why the Mexican death cult, with its annual Day of the Dead is as much a celebration of death as it is of life. Incidentally, Van Erp frequently shows his affinity with Latin-American culture, which is probably not that surprising, given the fact he originates from the Catholic south of the Netherlands. Besides, he made a tour through Argentina, Bolivia, Chilli and Paraguay, among others, in 2006.

The fact that human culture goes hand in hand with violent sacrifices seems to be one of van Erp’s main themes. For instance, the women in Odalisques Queuing for Soup (2001) have had to sacrifice their freedom for the pleasure of the sultan. The abundant use of colour and the dynamic style of painting could definitely be classed as expressionistic. The figures are not conjured up by contour lines but by means of colour differences. Yet the forms hardly disengage themselves from the suggestive mishmash of radiant hues. Only the title, which is exotic as well as trivial, seems to offer an indication of what is going on. With a minimum of identifiable pictorial elements Van Erp succeeds in tickling the imagination as much as possible. The gleaming bare back of the eunuch who ladles out the soup, the mask-like faces with the open mouths and the arm of the rearmost woman, which is stretched to heaven, seem to express oppression and despair. Or could the spectator just have been carried away by his imagination? Exactly what is happening remains a feverish dream.
Animals in particular are the objects of human aggression. In Caravan (2003) a horse is hung in a tree next to the caravan. However absurd the scene may seem, the bare teeth are evidence of excruciating suffering. You have to beware of human beings, even if they are recreating. Or perhaps even more so then. After all, we are dealing with homo rapiens, the most destructive creature on earth. The only animal that hunts, tortures and kills when it is not hungry, out of sheer boredom. And the rest of nature remains quite indifferent, the sky has even dressed itself up in pastel colours.

Even if you cannot really point out evil, it is still lurking somewhere in a Van Erp, like in Untitled (2004). Precisely because it remains elusive it is omnipresent, as if it is hidden in nature as a whole and consequently also in the arid soil and in the dead trees. Yet the suspicion mainly fastens on the shed and the two figures, of whom the one on the right-hand side carries a hammer. While the rest of nature can only obey the laws of nature, man, being the conscious animal he is, has the ability to choose so that evil can be counted against him.

Evil will always be an option of human freedom. If only for the fact that without evil we would not have the possibility to choose what is good. Yet Van Erp’s characters hardly seem aware of the notion that they do have a choice. Once they are in a remote location outside the collective moral domain, they obsessively and thoughtlessly abandon themselves to their malicious inclinations. Principles and the individual conscience seem out of the question, which is in accordance with an assertion that Plato put into the mouth of his brother. According to Glauco so-called ‘morally good people’ would immediately leave the straight and narrow path if they could become invisible. This would prove that people only observe the law and stick to the rules for fear of being punished and not from conviction.
What we call culture is an attempt to tame nature and human evil. An effort to eliminate fate and deliver mankind from its fears. However, nature is omnipotent and therefore culture cannot offer a solution to the human condition. Moreover, as irony would have it, culture itself becomes a new source of suffering. Since evil resides in man, it also resides in culture. For instance, in the moral and judicial structures that ought to curb evil. In architecture as well, the very same walls that protect us from the elements are at the same time oppressive and ominous. Van Erp’s architecture is usually so disconsolate that it brings out the worst in people. In Untitled (2005) a bizarre scene takes place in the empty, crumbling interior of a building that has fallen into disuse. Two figures are standing with their backs against the wall, as if paralysed with fright by the red bowels that lie on the floor within a distance of two meters. Furthermore, between the duo and the bowels there is an oil drum from which another pair of bowels is hanging. On closer inspection, the figure on the left not only seems to have a bleeding wound in his neck, he also has a Jesus-like appearance. Around his forehead he wears something that evokes associations with a crown of thorns. In the back of the room, under the high windows, stands a stepladder with missing legs. This seems to symbolize the impossibility to transcend the situation, while the bowels could be symbolizing the bond with earthly evil. The right figure, a child or a dwarf, gives an ambivalent impression. Not only is he close to the ground, he also seems to wear a demonic grin on his face.

At first sight van Erp’s work comes across as narrative, but in the end it leaves you in a state of uncertainty. His intrigues do not allow themselves to be fully fathomed, just like reality never shows its true character. However, exactly because of this it becomes even more apparent that man is constantly involved in shadowy practices. With his suggestive style van Erp succeeds in evoking repressed images from our

collective memory. Take for instance the vague and endlessly repeated television image that seemed to summarize the genocide in Rwanda: through a tele-photo lens we saw two men vehemently hacking away in the distance at people who were looked upon as cockroaches. Or one of those telling icons from the Bosnian war in 1992: emaciated prisoners behind barbed wire in concentration camp Omarska, which was called a research centre by the Serbs.

The hotel in Van Erp’s Hotel Florida (2007) is in fact merely a wooden shed in a waste land that stretches to the horizon. Moreover, the three figures that are hanging around here do not look like hotel guests. One looks like a lonely scarecrow, while the other two jointly carry an empty yoke on their shoulders. By way of punishment it seems, because the foremost figure is wearing a cap, which evokes associations with prisoners in Iraq and Guantanamo. Furthermore, the spectator observes the activity from up above, as from the perspective of a helicopter that is circling around because the suspicion has arisen that this remote place is not a holiday paradise.

Even though Van Erp turns the spectator into an eyewitness of sinister scenes, they become bearable after all since he balances the horrible with the trivial and ridiculous. In other words: he shows the world reflected in the disfiguring mirror of the grotesque. Not only by means of ironic titles but especially with his airy and fragmentary representation of the human figure. A Van Erp body is never perfect, usually parts of the body are omitted. The defectiveness and ethereal condition of the bodies seems to represent human shortcomings and the transience of life as well as human vanity. Whereas the characters are already in a state of decomposition, they still are incapable of doing much besides tormenting fellow humans and animals.

Despite the fact that Van Erp’s oeuvre can be regarded as a severe indictment against man, it is not merely a matter of an oppressive, guilt-ridden atmosphere. Therefore his style is too endearing. This is not only caused by his loose, even clumsy-looking touch, but also by the apparent simplicity of the abstracted compositions. And then those colours that are having their own exuberant party. After all, from the perspective of amoral nature there is nothing serious going on, it does not distinguish between creation and destruction. Aesthetically the world is entirely acceptable.

In South-East Brabant Garden Spade Massacre (2006) Van Erp explicitly situates the degrading practices in the province he grew up in and where he still lives and works. Two scantily dressed figures, one of them carrying a yoke and the other a spade, are standing in the open air, not far from a brick shed. The viewer cannot escape the impression that this is a matter of forced labour. From a wooden trestle a human leg dangles, reminding the prisoners of their possible fate, should their work not be up to the mark or should they try to escape. The fresh green leaves hanging from the trees and the running sandy and greyish hues show that everything is inevitably subjected to nature’s cycle. On the one hand Van Erp entices his fellow provincials to relieved laughter – ‘we do not have to worry about this, this does not happen over here’ - on

the other hand he gives them a roasting. ‘Do not think you are civilized. It happens here too, or it might as well happen here. Nothing is impossible in this world,’ he seems to say.
In his De Dignitate Hominis (On the Dignity of Man,1486), Pico della Mirandola - one of the founders of humanism - wrote that man is the only creature who has the ability to shape himself. ‘It will be in your power to descend to the lower, brutish forms of life but you will also be able, through your own decision, to rise to the higher and divine,' he impressed upon his readers. It is clear that Van Erp’s characters repeatedly fall from grace. His portrayal of man is also a clinical picture. Man suffers from a lack of transcendence, bound as he is to all earthly things. The spirit is governed by passions instead of the other way around. As early as the sixth century before Christ Confucius based his moral teachings on the golden rule: Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself. Apparently his appeal was far from obvious and thus necessary.

Over and over again people assume they can elevate themselves by reducing others to things or vermin. Man is entangled in history, which is characterized by elemental hostility. As yet, there is no light to be perceived at the end of this historic tunnel. Culture invariably leads to exorcism rituals, murder and war. And because the human tragedy is thus endlessly prolonged, there is little else for us to do but laugh, just like Van Erp. How else could he carry on producing such work? But his humour is always earnest: stinging and tributary to pain. The fact that human dignity is just an agreement that can be terminated at any moment remains harrowingly palpable.

In ‘He’s got… to Apply for a Job’ (2008), a figure lying stretched out on the wooden floor is shown from above. Apart from the central heating, a chandelier and a carpet the room is unfurnished. Judging from the ironic title, the figure is unemployed: the spread newspaper seems to have struck him with such lethargy that he is reduced to an unresisting tiny heap of flesh. Actually, this painting not so much deals with the hardships of unemployment, but with the fact that eventually every individual is at his own mercy. In short, it deals with the drama of individuation, which is regarded as the prime source of suffering in several religions and philosophies. All separate identity finds itself in a precarious situation and if there is no external enemy to be afraid of, man still has to fear himself.
This is also the theme of Young Lady about to Smash a Lobster (2008). Apparently the frenzy of the woman is such that it seeks a violent way out. Her raised arm with the hammer seems just as well aimed at the lobster as at her own head. Ecce homo: behold the ambivalent animal that is characterized by a lifelong inward conflict that he projects onto the outside world. However, preventing her aggression from being directed at herself by victimizing the lobster only seems a phantasm.

In Monkey on a String (2007) we see a little monkey that is hung from the ceiling with a string around its neck. Its painful grimace seems to indicate a horrible death-struggle. Apart from the monkey and the perspective lines, which suggest the corner of a room with a wainscot, it is an abstract work. The boundary between life and death seems to find a visual echo in the thin line between figuration and abstraction. The floor is predominantly dark, like the yawning abyss of death. The white stripe that indicates the wainscot on the right-hand side fluoresces without mercy. Moreover, the rosy glow from within the grey walls does not radiate a redeeming celestial light. This is existential loneliness showing its ugliest face. For there is no escape from recognizing a human being in the monkey. And it demonstrates that the perpetrator did not see this, which leads to the most bewildering of observations: the perpetrator did not realize that what he does to another animal or human being, he also does to himself. If only because this signifies the collapse of his own refinement.

Rogier Ormeling