DU Photograph

Japonism If you draw a rather large circle with a brush dipped in black ink, in a continuous movement, as Japanese monks do, then you have created an ENSO (Circle). The idea is not to make that circle while you think: now I’m going to make a circle, concentrating on the brush, the ink and the perfection of the movement. The intention is to make that circle while you forget yourself. You let your body draw that circle, with a different part of your brain than the cerebral cortex that houses your thoughts. You take a breath and in the exhale the movement comes, fluently, resolutely, as perfectly as possible. In the moment. But then. The result is not perfect, because coincidence plays a role on all sides. There is a drop of ink. Hair of the brush lead a life of its own, the amount of ink is too little, the paper is too lumpy. And so every circle is different, some are boring and meaningless, others are amazingly interesting. That is where coincidence helped. The ancient Greeks already said it, fortuity loves art, art loves fortuity. The Japanese say more or less the same with what they call ‘Wabi Sabi’ *. The power of imperfection and incompleteness. Making Ensos is called a spiritual way of drawing. But actually not the actual drawing activity is spiritual, but the interpretation of what has been created. Beauty, if it is successful and disappointment if it has become nothing special. This raises questions such as: Why did beauty arise there, and why is that so difficult to articulate? What is actually beauty? It seems to be a sort of ‘devine quality’ that can be felt deep within us. Has that sensitivity been learned? And how can beauty just come from nothing? Anyway, recognizing beauty is recognizing …. q u a l i t y. Quality The American author Robert Persig has devoted a whole book to the definition of quality. It was an important eye-opener for me during my student days. A philosophical book that reads like a road movie. The book is called ‘Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance’. Ultimately, he defines quality as the beginning, as the basis of everything. Some things change your life, that book and the discovery of Japonism and the discovery of the Enso did that for me. Japonism has been a fairly unknown period in European art history. It turned Europe upside down at the beginning of last century with new aesthetic rules (‘memes’) from Japan for designers, artists and architects. Like ‘Kanso’, the art of omission and the hard to define ‘Wabi Sabi’. Eventually these discoveries also formed the basis of my current inspiration. I did not want to make Ensos myself as a monk. After a number of times I was done with it. And I was and am not really interested in the Zen Buddhist side of the matter. I am interested in the aesthetic side of the story. I wanted to see if I could lift it to a different level, free of the simple but present dogmatics that stick to it, exploring further and looking for new ways. It is about researching minimalism, especially about the power of Wabi Sabi. And of course the research of contrasts in form and color. Own development First, I wanted to work very big. Following the (Walter Grophius?) statement that a square meter of blue is bluer than a square centimeter of blue. And yes, I wanted to see beyond the black and white what could be done with color. So I started making Wabi Sabi, Less is more and color contrast studies. Everything at once. But then there is immediately a problem: How do you make very large Enso-like paintings? With a super-large brush? I decided to keep it practical. I make studies in miniature and use all possible means, pencil, felt pen, pen, computer, everything is allowed, everything is an instrument as long as I use it myself. From my experience as a designer of products, I know that being consequent in design language is important, all sides of a product have to speak the same form language, and that should also apply to the graphic design language in my studies. The advantage of the computer is then great: You can make as many studies as you want, it costs almost nothing. But I did want to make a series that clearly uses the same basic principles and form language. That is how I started making my first big canvas. Education I trained as an Industrial Designer. I started with the study at Delft University of Technlogy, I completed my education at the Gerrit Rietveld Art Academy in Amsterdam. Professional carier In addition to my own industrial design practice, I have worked in education, mainly at Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Industrial Design, (Netherlands) as a teacher / associate professor and to a lesser extent as a researcher. My specialization: “Design aesthetics”. * From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: In traditional Japanese aesthetics, wabi-sabi is a world view centered on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. The aesthetic is sometimes described as one of beauty that is “imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete”. Characteristics of the wabi-sabi aesthetic include asymmetry, roughness, simplicity, economy, austerity, modesty, intimacy, and appreciation of the ingenuous integrity of natural objects and processes.