STATEMENT
In “The Analytical Language of John Wilkins”, Borges describes ‘a certain Chinese Encyclopedia,’ the Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge, in which it is written that animals are divided into:
1. those that belong to the Emperor,
2. embalmed ones,
3. those that are trained,
4. suckling pigs,
5. mermaids,
6. fabulous ones,
7. stray dogs,
8. those included in the present classification,
9. those that tremble as if they were mad,
10. innumerable ones,
11. those drawn with a very fine camelhair brush,
12. others,
14. those that have just broken a flower vase,
15. those that from a long way off look like flies.
2. embalmed ones,
3. those that are trained,
4. suckling pigs,
5. mermaids,
6. fabulous ones,
7. stray dogs,
8. those included in the present classification,
9. those that tremble as if they were mad,
10. innumerable ones,
11. those drawn with a very fine camelhair brush,
12. others,
14. those that have just broken a flower vase,
15. those that from a long way off look like flies.
Foucault, The Words The Things
I make paintings that can be both figurative and abstract. With these images I examine the modes of image making, perception and meaning. An important question I am seeking to answer is, “Is what you see the same as what you actually have in mind?”
I test the apparent laws of reality with images. This means that many of my works are based on paradigms that are about visual arts that can be visual, historical as well as theoretical. The next thing I do is put pressure on that concept, in order to reveal a more fundamental part of the visual system. In that sense I speak also about pre-images as the opposite of the afterimage. For me it is about the image as a conceptual entity. With painting I seek to depict the conceptual basis of the image more so than any figurative or formal aspects that are perhaps tied to the concept. I have the intention to show how a picture works and not how it is painted.
Besides my activities as an artist am I working on an ongoing project called Lost Painters since April 2010. There, I write daily to decompose positions and paradigms in visual art. It is as well a field research as a way to publicize concepts on art without making pictures myself. I consider this an integral part of my artistic research.
In short, my work is about the systems that underlie the system of seeing and reconsider that by a conceptually based approach to painting.
For more about his work please visit here.