Gravity, Humanity, This introduces and intermingles strands of van Nunen's production into one epic song. Three suites of sculpture and several wall reliant works contain a whiff of arte povera, a Northern European gothic mood and some brooding cartoonish levity. They loom and they ache.
United by the process of collecting, walking and finding, van Nunen takes the studio to the street, where meandering strolls are interlaced with the process of making. Mostly found objects are then worked by hand – refinished, furnished and refined.
His latest series of 'Refugee Works' emerged from scrutiny of news imagery collected during the
recent invasion (and subsequent evacuation) of Ukraine. Handles, hooks and spindly braces are
applied to bundles of miscellanea as if they were makeshift backpacks ready for a long uncertain journey. The language is universal: upheaval and hurried exodus, a collection of the self in extremes. Climate migration, turf wars and the global economic rift could all be generative fables for these multimedia sculptures.
Van Nunen's ‘Hiding Places' present us with the missing figure front on. Primitive and enigmatic
countenances with blithe expressions provide places to both hide and observe. Benign yet
mysterious, they are shelters. These entities are surrogates for our need for security, for silence, a place to demur.
There is another element made possible by the daily traverse: joyful imagination. Refuse is brought together in a series of works entitled 'Protest Clouds'. This poetic deceit is a congregation of sidewalk curiosities, pale figures mounted on precarious posts and props. The desire to push abject detritus into the sky demonstrates an aspirational sensitivity. En masse they create a phalanx of optimism.
