I’ll be your hill, solo in Galeria Silvestre, November 4 till January 13, 2018, Calle Doctor Fourquet 21, Madrid, Spain
LETTER TO ANTONY, OCTOBER 14 2017
Dear Antony,
Hope you had a save trip back home. And the work is not flooding over -lets say-
your eye balls. How was Venice? Heard much about it, but wasn’t able to go myself.
Did you see any good stuff?
What I’m thinking: Maybe I already try to explain what I’m working on, till there are
proper photo’s or you make it to the studio. Oké?
The most exciting thing to me is that it’s really sculpture sculptures I’m working on. It
feels as if it’s the first time I do this kind of work, and I like it a lot. Different from
the guitars or my furniture-like objects, they really evolved from the drawings itself.
They are all wood and paint, some with fragments of plastic. In the beginning I painted
them with oil, the more recent are done with acrylic. The wood is all leftovers glued
together, pieces I find in containers or in the park here at the end of the street.
(Most of the trees in the park are willow. Pollard willow. It is really soft and grows
super fast. But the pieces that are cut and left are rather thin and not very useful
when it comes to sculpting. Now a few months ago one of the uncut, full-grown
willows came down completely with a hard wind. So I managed to get hold of some
bigger pieces.)
(Hope my explaining is not too much unsophisticated-spoken-language; I’m reading
J. D. Salinger’s Franny and Zooey again.)
What I mean with evolved from the drawings is that I had this drawing, Saddle for
girls with skirts, (excuse my ever erotic mind) and I really wanted to see this image
as an object. So I made it. Basically a sculpted illustration of a drawing. Or a
sculpture after a drawing. But also, and that’s a second way of putting it, in drawing a
lot has to do with the illusion of space. All this effort to create an illusion of depth.
Now with the sculpture it’s already there from the start. So easy and super concrete,
quite a liberation I must say.
But also the use of color is different. This summer we got a dishwasher. (We got a
freezer too, and a car, although I still don’t drive… but more about that later.) And it
won’t come as a surprise that the way you look at the sponge for dishwashing
completely changes when you don’t have to use it half of the Saturdays anymore.
It’s a fascinating object with beautiful colors. To paint the colors and to make the form
seemed logic in the same way I once started the wall drawings (the Catalogue for a
room series); a way of documenting what you leave behind. So far I made about ten
sponge-replica’s.
I’m not sure if I should worry, but the process reminds me of how some of the Pop
(The New Super Realism) was done. I have this book by Mario Amaya from 1965,
Pop Art … and after, I got from my first drawing professor, and as always when you
read, it fits incredibly into what you’re doing at the moment. (About the worrying:
I believe it was Ingmar Bergman who said that the maker should not analyse his own
makings…) (My wife corrects me: It’s Andrei Tarkovsky!)
Since that I did a hearing-protection-headset. It’s one of my crucial tools in the wood
workshop, but also, it makes you feel alone in a good way. It isolates the visual from
all the rest. Then the camera I used to make the dirty-pictures-slideshow with, a
football after a drawing of an anecdote where a friend teaches me how to hit the ball,
(look at the spot where your foot actually will touch the ball, not at the goal) guitar
effect pedals that are on my wish list, and very recently I finished a cap. It’s actually
advertising for beer, festival proof. My daughter brought it home. I love to wear it, but
never dare to do it in public. All painted wood, some with little plastic and metal.
The piece I’m currently working on is a sculpture of a light jacket which hangs on a
simple coat hanger. It illustrates the moment on a party when you give up being stiff
and uncomfortable, hang your coat away, and are able to dance.
All pieces are tied up with personal stories and represent objects that are meant for
use close to or on the body. Sculptures of a daily life.
So far.
Hopefully until very soon,
All best!
Klaas
P.S. The title, I didn’t say anything about the title yet! And about Dürer.
