Red door

Red door (1994) by Berend Strik takes as its subject a threshold — the door that marks the boundary between inside and outside, between public and private, between one state of being and another.

The color red transforms the ordinary door into something more charged: red as passion, danger, stop, blood. A red door is simultaneously inviting (red is welcoming in some cultures) and warning (red means stop in traffic lights). This ambivalence is characteristic of Strik's approach.

The door as subject connects to art history — frommagical doors in fairy tales to religious thresholds in church architecture. The door is a promise and a barrier at the same time, and Strik's textile interventions seem to enhance both its welcoming and its warning functions.

In Strik's hands, the door becomes a metaphor for the viewer's encounter with the artwork: the red door is what we must pass through to enter the world of the image.

Sources: Galerie Fons Welters