My artistic work consists of the process of looking at things – impressions, natural and ephemeral phenomena as well as the observation that emerges of those. Trough the very undertaking of observing thoroughly I question the (inherent) ability (of an image) to evoke a certain reality and by extension a certain understanding. As Rilke phrased it so appropriately: “These trees are magnificent, but even more magnificent is the sublime and moving space between them, as though with their growth it too increased.” [1] The use of photography and other (visual) instruments – not only to look at, or to look through, or even to look with – in translating ephemeral phenomena and transformations specific to nature reveals not only the pictured, but also the medium itself.
By the (unconventional) use of photographic material, such as the adaptation of light sensitive material with a needle, a nail and a hammer, or the opening of a JPG-file in Microsoft Word, I generate images that question the very codes of the traditional or contemporary use of photography. I construct images on the basis of (well-established) concepts and deconstructive methodologies in which the erratic and subjective intervene. “The poetic image […] is not an echo of the past. On the contrary: through the brilliance of any image, the distant past resounds with echoes.” [2] Striving towards the most fitting translation of the phenomena, my work arises from actions and impressions and finds its expressions in sculptures, photographs, installations or performances. Using the reproducibility of photography, the same (photographic) image can appear in its original form (positive or negative), or in print, installation, or also in a sculpture. ‘”It is better to live in a state of impermanence than in one of finality.” [3] The process of hunting, discovering, re-arranging and ‘enframing’ – or even the mere searching as such, brings meaning. “Roads no longer merely lead to places, they are places.” [4]
[1] Rainer Maria Rilke in Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, Beacon Press, Boston, 1994.
[2] Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, Beacon Press, Boston, 1994.
[3] Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, Beacon Press, Boston, 1994.
[4] John Brinckerhoff Jackson in Francesco Careri, Walkscapes: Walking as an Aesthetic Practice, Gili, Barcelona, 2002.