2026
Puzzled III
In the related work Puzzled II, you can read what this work is based on. Here, however, I refer back to pretty much the first puzzle you encounter as a growing child. It is the next level after you have mastered a Shape sorter as a toddler, you could say. Perhaps you are tempted to combine both rows driven by a primary impulse to solve the puzzle?
Puzzled II
Project furniture—in my universe, the chairs that fall under this category. Project furniture is practically stackable, lightweight, and connectable. Furnishing a space for this or that activity is like solving a puzzle, especially regarding the seating arrangement. Everyone needs to have a good view, people aren’t too cramped, there is optimal capacity, etcetera. The sleek sides of the Vitra 03, a design by the Belgian Maarten van Severen, tempted me to literally turn them into puzzle pieces. That makes setting it up child’s play!
Stamlijnen
Patterns, mirroring, mirroring patterns. Two D, three D? No idea! Can something be wrong so that it ultimately turns out to be right? This work challenges you to take a stand. There is always something that seems to defy logic. For me, this was actually a kind of revelation too. I embarked on an adventure that ultimately called upon problem-solving ability on the one hand, and lateral thinking on the other. Taking a risk, because whether it would succeed was far from certain, and that’s quite something when you’ve already drawn, painted, and cut out 32 chairs. But it paid off. Chairs from the single-tube frame family of patriarch Mart Stam. The pattern, the lines, form a kind of constructive genealogy.
Afstammelingen V
Playing with isometric perspective remains a joy, especially when combined with the single-tube frame chair. In general, a ‘regular’ chair comes quite close to a cube in terms of proportions. I therefore take the liberty of equating them. Isometry has a more decorative, pattern-like side than linear perspective. This is because things do not shrink; the proportions remain endlessly the same in all directions. For a number of years now, the third dimension has also literally been a part of some of my works. A beautiful, early example is Pinocchio II. I have also been working with a Stanley knife for quite some time. I cut out shapes and assemble them spatially, creating a special, subtly vibrating dynamic through the play of light and the resulting shadows. Recent examples of this are Descendants III or Babel IV. In this work, I combine both: relatively subtle variations in form and somewhat more exuberant variations in color on Mart Stam’s original model.
Family Dice
If, like me, you delve deeper into tubular frame chairs, you’ll see all sorts of connections and relationships within the “tubular frame collection.” For example, in Cheese, it’s the visible way the backrest is attached. That triangle of attachment points can then become a face. I started with Cees Braakman’s SB01. It turns out that many other designs also have these facial features, see Family Portrait III, which I recently made. I’d already noticed that the number of (visible) attachment points varies considerably. I made a game about it myself, including a die. The ‘family of attachment point variations’ then becomes the Family Dice.
Back up II’26
In a single movement, this work is created together with Lucrezia looks. This one is inspired by an old school chair with an oval plywood backrest. Eyes in your back, reassuring security.
Lucrezia’s looks
Those who know my oeuvre have long been familiar with portraits of chairs depicting only the backrest, just as with people, only the head and sometimes part of the upper body is depicted. It began in 2012 with Portraits 1 through 9. Many more followed, which can be found on this website, for example, Portrait 11 or Portrait 46. Naturally, I’ve also started playing with this portrait theme again. A good example is Pinocchio or Pinocchio III. And in this light I can’t leave Look unmentioned. And that’s mainly due to the intervention I made in this work. It’s up to the viewer to figure that out. It works best face-to-face with the work (which is true for most of my works, by the way).
Back up-zelfportret
Many chairs made during the Baroque period, mostly for the more luxurious palaces, have a ‘plank’ in the backrest sawn into Baroque shapes. Luxuriant curls and curves. As is often the case, I was actually looking for something different, but while leafing through the book “Möbelstile,” my eye fell on these Baroque armrests. I immediately thought of papercut silhouettes. The step to portraits isn’t so big then. What portrait? A self-portrait!