Hans Broek

Hans Broek's landscapes are charged with a troubling tension. That certainly applies to his series about the history of the Dutch slave trade, The Things I Used To Do. Broek made trips to countries such as Ghana, Senegal, Suriname and Curaçao, visiting locations that played a significant role in the transatlantic slave trade during the seventeenth century, like the city of Elmina on the Ghanaian coast, with a view of Elmina Castle.
Dungeons, forts and cell doors in his paintings attest to a disturbing chapter in Dutch history. Broek documents those places, seemingly without comment. Yet he also plays with painterly means in order to seduce as well as confuse the viewer. He draws on the expressionist style of his earlier work, uses size as a means of confrontation and frequently works in black-and-white as a symbolic reference to inequality.