Archive

Period 2008–2013

As a sta­rt­ing vis­u­al a­rtist I have al­ways felt most at­tracted to the a­rt of pa­inting. Even when I use oth­er me­dia, or if my works take a spa­tial form, I ope­rate from a pa­interly proc­ess. What makes this me­di­um so in­ter­est­ing is that it is a di­rect and con­ce­p­tu­al me­di­um, whilst it al­so al­lows you to work in a very in­tu­itive and expe­rimen­tal man­ner. This in­tu­iti­on does has to fit with­in certa­in con­di­ti­ons, oth­erwise it would re­sult in­to a cas­u­al­ness or free­dom with­out ma­king any state­ments. The selec­ti­on of works in my a­rchiv­e re­late to the his­to­ry of i­deas and vis­u­al lang­uage of Modernism (Cézanne, Cubism, Mondrian/Malevich, etc.), con­cre­te, and for­mal a­rt. They a­re re­sea­rches for my own me­di­um which have a con­cre­te, for­mal, sen­so­ry and in­tu­itive cha­racter.

In 2008-2009 I to­ok ab­stract or geomet­ric shapes, that I most­ly en­coun­tered in the pub­lic doma­in, as a sta­rt­ing point. These div­erse shapes and pat­terns were usu­al­ly the re­sult of a func­ti­onal in­ter­ven­ti­on such as fences, iso­la­ti­on ma­teri­al, wo­od­en flo­ors, and pa­inted ga­rage do­ors. Rhythm, the shift of a flat/graph­ic cha­racter or a spe­cif­ic (se­ries) of pat­terns or shapes, of­ten plays a sig­nif­i­cant ro­le in the selec­ti­on proc­ess. The sta­rt­ing point was re­sea­rched in a pa­interly way. In my ea­rly works the brushstroke is in serv­ice of the pa­inted shape or rhythm. These a­re sensed or touched by the pa­int. The back­ground and the fore­ground a­re tre­ated equal­ly. For the se­ries of pa­intings with the cir­cle I used a ca­rdbo­a­rd tem­plate so that I wouldn’t need to consi­der the shape dur­ing the pa­inting proc­ess. In two of the four pa­intings the brush stroke serves it­self rath­er than the cir­cle. In the oth­er two pa­intings it’s more ab­out the rela­ti­onship be­tween pa­int, ca­r­ri­er, and wall. The lat­ter al­so appli­es to the black lac­quered work that con­sists of se­pa­rate el­e­ments.

In the next pe­ri­od 2010-2011 the ca­rdbo­a­rd tem­plate (see ab­ove), which at first was not con­scious­ly made as an a­rtwork, gave me new in­sights. I de­ci­ded to a­voi­d can­vas and change it for a­rtificial leath­er, plank­ing ma­teri­al, transpa­rant pla­tics, fi­breglass wall­pa­per, con­cre­te or li­no­le­um. The out­come of a substan­tial im­age had to be a re­sult of a pa­interly proc­ess. By the proc­ess, I me­an, the act­ing it­self (in­tu­itively and prac­ti­cal/func­ti­onal), act­ing that is re­lat­ed to the qua­lity of the ma­teri­al or to the ap­ply­ing of pa­int or spray pa­int that re­lates to the ca­r­ri­er.

Still I ke­p­t con­tinu­ing to be in­ter­ested in a con­structed, substan­tial and ab­stract im­age. I made the ca­r­ri­er my­self by glu­ing pre­pa­red strokes of fi­breglass wall­pa­per to­geth­er or by glu­ing them on a wo­od­en pan­el.

Around 2012-2013 I sta­rted to draw more on white A4 pa­per and ma­king co­l­lages on the insi­de of en­ve­lopes. The lat­ter gave me the op­ti­on to work in se­ries. The dra­wings and co­l­lages were me­ant as stud­ies for pa­intings. Howev­er, I di­dn‘t suc­ceed to trans­late them on­to can­vas. The stud­ies were more in­ter­est­ing and per­haps to­o fin­ished.  Who knows if I might revis­it this in the fu­ture?

As a re­sult I went sea­rching a­ga­in for ca­r­ri­ers where I could re­act more di­rectly like with the en­ve­lopes. Ca­r­riers with gri­ds, lines, or pat­terns turned out to be quite su­it­able and ef­fective as some­thing to re­act to.