Detail for 'Artificial garden’'

"The marbling effect in this screenprint is deceptive because it is created using photo-stencils – it reveals Senbergs' growing sophistication as a printmaker as well as contributing to the seductive dreamlike quality of the image."

Hendrik Kolenberg
[Hendrik Kolenberg, Jan Senbergs complete screenprints 1960-88, pg 43]

"The artificial garden line came from something I read somewhere, and being aware of suburban gardens, their neatness and tidiness. With that certainty and rationality you can almost build a sculptural paddock. It is simpler – I wanted to be more clear-cut, cleaner than in the other screenprints, still retaining some sort of sculptural forms, even though it is flat. It was certainly away from natural reality. That’s why I called it artificial. A lot of this is sub-conscious you know … I think it is a mistake for artists to over-intellectualize or over analyze their work – I believe it can take away from the gut instinct that gives a work its particular idiosyncratic force."

Jan Senbergs
[Hendrik Kolenberg, Jan Senbergs complete screenprints 1960-88, pg 43]