M HKA Ensembles

Painting, 120 x 80 cm.

Collection: Courtesy Studio Koen van den Broek, Merksem.

The overworld versus underworld is at the heart of this painting which was created following Mozart's opera. Van den Broek took his inspiration for this division in South Korea, on Jeju Island to be precise, which is one of the last matriarchies. The painting is based an earlier work by him, Omniverse, also inspired by the images he made of the Water Museum, a creation of the Japanese-Korean architect Intam Jun on Jeju. It is a circular concrete structure around a water feature where the light coming through is constantly changing. In this work too, we see a reference to that water feature with a reflection of the sun above. An externalization of the internal process where one must dig deep to reach the light. That alchemical trip, the innovative process that unfolds amidst a struggle between the new and the old, also marks the key theme of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte.