Hearsay continues Lieven Hendriks’ ongoing exploration of how images emerge and dissolve.
The three cloud- or island-like forms are not painted onto the surface; rather, they are revealed through removal. The artist builds up layers of paint and then carefully strips parts of it away, exposing the raw canvas beneath. This process of “reverse painting” gives the image a dual nature—simultaneously constructed and erased.
Visually, the soft blue gradient evokes an atmospheric space reminiscent of sky or water, while the exposed areas appear like residual traces of memory—tangible yet uncertain. The title Hearsay suggests this instability: what we perceive is not the object itself, but a mediated impression shaped by layers of translation and loss.
Hendriks shifts away from representation toward perception itself. Through acts of covering and uncovering, the painting becomes a site where time, material, and vision intersect, inviting the viewer to navigate between clarity and ambiguity.