Drents Museum

Monumental paintings by Deborah Poynton

The monumental paintings by South African artist Deborah Poynton (Durban, 1970) will adorn the Abbey Church of the Drents Museum. The beauty of her paintings attracts the visitor and gives the viewer the feeling of entering a new world. The artworks have been painted with great attention to the smallest detail. In the exhibition Deborah Poynton - Beyond Belief, the Drents Museum presents Deborah Poynton’s most recent work (2008-2020). She made the painting Beyond Belief especially for this exhibition. The exhibition in Assen is Poynton's first museum exhibition in Europe.

Deborah Poynton creates paintings in a realistic style, in which she combines pieces of the world she sees around her. She places figures, objects and elements from nature together so that a new reality arises. Poynton refrains from any judgment and wants to use her works to make visitors aware that everyone perceives the world in their own way and that there is no right or wrong.

Beyond Belief

Poynton takes inspiration from her own, private world. She works with only a few models, who come from her personal environment, and uses objects she finds at home or during a walk. Especially for this exhibition, Poynton made the painting Beyond Belief (2019-2020), which can be seen for the first time in the presentation in Assen. Beyond Belief resembles a work of art standing in a church behind the altar. It contains many references to classical religious paintings, yet it is immediately clear that this work is not religious. The figures are painted humanly and the collection of objects appears to have been chosen at random.

Introduction in Europe

Despite the exceptional quality, this is the first exhibition in Europe devoted to her work. The Drents Museum fulfills a pioneering role by introducing Poynton's artworks to the Netherlands. The works connect well with the extensive collection of contemporary realism in the Drents Museum.

Deborah Poynton

Deborah Poynton was born in South Africa and spent her childhood in Great Britain, Swaziland, and the United States. She studied at the Rhode Island School of Design for two years. At the age of nineteen, she returned to South Africa, where she started painting full-time in Cape Town. Poynton is hardly known in the Netherlands. The Drents Museum wants to change this and shows paintings that she has made during the past ten years.

July 11 to October 3, 2021

Drents Museum
Brink 1
Assen
drentsmuseum.nl