Rob Birza: Galerie Fons Welters.

Around 1990, some powerful local players anointed Rob Birza as The Man Who Will Save Dutch Painting. Overwhelming expectations were thereby heaped oil an uneven young painter often given to a facile virtuosity, heavy-handed irony, and an all too hasty form of stylistic eclecticism. However, in recent years Birza has sometimes appeared more focused and convincing--notably, in "Cosy Monsters from Inner Space," a series of comic strip-style horror paintings and drawings from 1998.

The equally successful new series "One Is Free," 2001-2003, the subject of his latest ...

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