2025
Gearmd
As a form, a repetition of that from Pas de deux XIV from 2023 and Pas de deux XV from 2024. I played the game with shadows earlier in the works Rising Revolt or Shadows. The arm-to-arm Thonet chairs feel as if they are supported in the back by the looming shadows. They push them forward, as if. A beautiful stage for a good conversation or a newlywed couple.
Anti materie
This design by Danish designer Arne Jacobsen is also called the Ant chair in English. There are both three and four-legged versions. For my ‘version’ the tripod was of course necessary. The combination of pencil drawing and carving and assembly in layers makes the originally wooden part of the chair drawn by the light. The frame follows the shapes of the chair and the perspective and thus makes the whole into a kind of (family?) coat of arms for this chair and therefore for Arne Jacobsen.
Space Shield
A razor-sharp linework in parts combined with more classical pencil drawing produces a layered work, also in a literal sense. For the more language-sensitive viewer there is also the title ‘Space Shield’. Of course a reference to the shape of the frame.
Draagstoel II
Sedan chairs you only see them in museums nowadays, a relic from times gone by. Now you can see the car as a modern version of a sedan chair, a self-driving one even. That development and the associated improvement of the road network manoeuvred the sedan chair into oblivion.
Another angle is a chair with a recess in the back so that it is easier to lift. You often see these in catering- and school situations. See for example Duet and Duet II or Snorrenstoel.
Babel IV
Cutting away the residual shapes when I arrange or stack chairs started with Rietveld and has since conquered its place in my way of working and also thinking. In a small drawing like Backwards or in a large work like Tijdkring X. When cutting out, I also try to push my boundaries. Reason to dust off the starting point behind Babylonian score from 2018. Spatial and flat interwoven in several ways into a subtle fabric that subtly seems to move with changing light.
Tijdkring X
In a sense, you can see the curved furniture as Thonet invented it as a precursor or, if you like, a preliminary stage of the tubular frame chair. In my work it worked the other way around. First the connection to a ‘multi-seating object’ of the tubular frame chair as recently with Tijdkring IX but also earlier with Tijdkring VII, VI and even earlier Tijdkring III (2007). In this work, as with no. IX, I used the cutting technique by making part of the image separately on watercolor-cardboard and mounting this part later. The shadows that are created this way provide a pleasant tingling sensation but also some confusion for the viewer. I briefly considered calling this work ‘Thonetwork’ but that went too far for me, although of course it is that.
Insiders will recognize Thonet no. 14, which has here interlocked the armrests, thus preventing this gathering from becoming too relaxed. Because leaning back is out of the question.