New group exhibition of Karmijn opens on August 28th - including Witty Art!

Vanaf 28 augustus t/m 8 september is een showcase van Witty Art te zien als onderdeel van de grote groepsexpositie van Kunstenaarscollectief Karmijn in de Rotterdamse Fenixloods!

Graag nodig ik jullie allemaal van harte uit voor de opening op woensdag 28 augustus a.s. om 19.30 door Jisca Bijlsma, directeur van het Chabot Museum Rotterdam. 

De expositie is daarna nog te zien t/m zondag 8 september en is dagelijks geopend van 12.00 tot 18.00 uur. Je vindt de expo op de tweede verdieping van de Fenixloods, Veerlaan 21 op Rotterdam Katendrecht.

De groepsexpositie toont werk van (bijna alle) leden van Karmijn en geeft daarmee een goed beeld van de diversiteit aan disciplines en stijlen binnen deze vereniging van ondernemende kunstenaars uit Rotterdam.

Zelf toon ik vier werken uit een nog niet eerder vertoonde Witty Art Series: ''Once Upon A Time Never Happened'', bestaande uit totaal zes werken, elk vervaardigd in 2015. Een serie, die tot stand kwam door middel van een proces dat ik ''Creative Destruction and Creative Reconstruction'' ben gaan noemen en hoe dat uitmondde in de allereerste Witty Collage Art werken ooit.

Lees meer over het ontstaan van deze serie in dit blog over ''Once Upon A Time Never Happened!'

Extra: lees meer over het vervolg daarop in dit blog over Witty Collage Art.

Nieuwsgierig? Je hebt binnenkort de kans om vier werken uit deze serie in persoon te kunnen zien, en wel van woensdag 28 augustus t/m zondag 8 september in de Fenixloods, Veerlaan 21 op Rotterdam-Katendrecht.

Tot ziens!

(english version below this picture)

(english)


Proudly presenting another selection of Witty Art as part of a greater groupexhibition of Rotterdam Art Collective Karmijn. This exhibition will show work of (nearly all) members of Karmijn and in doing so, proves to be an excellent showcase of the variety of styles and discpilines within this artists run collective.

You are all invited to join us at the Fenixloods on Rotterdam Katendrecht for the exhibition's grand opening on Wednesday August 28th, 19.30hrs by Jisca Bijlsma, the director of the renowned Chabot Museum Rotterdam.

After that, the exhibtion will be open daily from 12.00 tot 18.00 hrs up and untill with Sunday September 8th. You can find the expo on the second floor of the Fenixloods at Veerlaan 21, Rotterdam (Katendrecht area).

I myself will be showing four works from my series ''Once Upon A Time Never Happened'', born in 2015 out of a process I've come to call ''Creative Deconstruction and Creative Reconstruction'' - a process that eventually resulted in the creation of the first Witty Collage Art ever.

Please read more about this series and its birth in this blog about ''Once Upon A Time Never Happened!'

And, while yoú're at it, please read even more about where it led me creatively in this blog about Witty Collage Art.

Curious to see more? You can see four of these in person at the Fenixloods Rotterdam, Veerlaan 21 Rotterdam (Katendrecht area) from August 28th - September 8th!

See you there!

Witty Collage Art enters a whole new dimension, too!

As devoted followers of this blog and my art know, I got into the hang of creating collages about a year or two ago, as I was overcome with a strong desire to both destroy old work (okay: work I considered failures) and create something new. So why not combine those two forces, and instead of looking at drawings that didn't turn out so well as ''failures', use parts of them and turn them into the foundation for a whole new series of Witty Art all together?

Hence, the creation of the series 'Once Upon A Time.. Never Happened!'

Now, it was time for more.

Lately, I accumulated a lot of ''half-way-there-works'' (half finished or just not-quite-that-good drawings, etc) dwhich to me provided more than enough volume for a whole new process of what I've come to call 'Creative Destruction and Resurrection': cutting or just downright tearing or ripping things up and readjusting the remaining fragments, trying to see if and where they'd fit in - and if not, that that'd be also fine because than they simply belong elsewhere.

No shortage of paper or canvas to create more works of art!

While working on this new batch of Witty Collage Art, something interesting started to happen. Comicbook-style elements like text balloons started appearing out of nowhere, while trusted characters and familiar faces popped up (including a couple of little lost bears and sinister looking rabbits, ofcourse), as I began mixing different materials and techniques into one big blend of both cartoon and surrealist art - without having any real idea of what on earth I was doing.

But boy, am I pleased with the outcome! It's almost like I've unknowingly been creating the picture book I'd always dreamt of, except that there is not such a thing as a storyline involved - well,not at the moment, that is. And perhaps there is no need to, as I got taught by a somewhat unexpected visit of an expert in storytelling - but more on that in my next blog!

So, what do you think? Is this gonna be a book or not? What's your opinion?

Creative destruction gave life to my series 'Once Upon A Time... Never Happened!'

So, a bit earlier I wrote about The Making Of ''Once Upon A Time Never Happened #4'' which offered a little preview of this new series. And now, I'd like to share with you how this one came to be.

Basically, this series emerged purely by coincidence and out of destructive rage. I was drawing, working on another Witty Art Series of a couple of Singles, I can't even remember and it doesn't matter. All  I know is that it just wouldn't go the way I had in mind. The ink didn't flow, my hand didn't direct the pen, the paper was not the right kind, etc. 

In short: it all sucked big time.

It's one of those moments you frustrate the hell out yourself as an artist, because you try so hard to make exactly that what you have in mind, and nothing, absolutely nothing you try seems to work, in fact, anything you try only seems to make matters worse. 

It's when everything inside of you screams: ''Stop! Let go, you idiot!'' and when all ratio in you says and knows you should, the artist in you just cannot give up. Because giving up, basically means you failed - whereas you should have nailed it.

Now, I do realise not all artists nor all creatives are like that. But I am. I get terribly frustrated when I find myself not able to recreate the image I had in my head and the feeling of disappointment when I have to abandon a drawing and leave it ''unfinished'' or even ''mislukt'' is all-absorping. In fact, it's a feeling of pure sadness and loss and I can even really mourn ''the ones that didn't came to be... ''.

Anyway, here I was, being totally frustrated and angry and all, at which point I just teared up this particular drawing. I totally tore it to pieces. And as always when I do that, I felt relieved. No way back, let's start anew.

Untill I caught a glimpse of the pieces lying scattered on the floor. There was something about them that caught my eye.

Something new, something promising and alluring.

Somehow, these separate pieces of torn paper seemed to tell a story of their own. The way they were arranged, seemingly random, all of a sudden made sense to me. I picked the pieces up from the floor and started rearranging them onto a sheet of blank paper, playing around with them, moving them up, down, left and right all over the surface, taking some pieces out and by then I'd started drawing on to the underlying paper as well. Connecting the separate pieces, tying them together. 

Creating a whole new image from one I'd so eagerly and willingly destroyed earlier.

From this process of 'creative destruction' came my series 'Once Upon A Time... Never Happened!', in which I've mixed different classic techniques and media such as drawing with ink, graphite and charcoal, adding coloured ink and watercolours, using both drawing, collage and text into a whole new series of Witty Art. 

There are five of them so far - and I really would like to explore this use of mixed media a la Witty further, taking it up a notch or two and work on bigger-sized canvas, perhaps adding the use of digital media as well. But that all will take some further exploring and experimenting, which I can only do once I have set up my new studio again.

Which, hopefully, will not take that long anymore.
 

The Making Of: ''Once Upon A Time Never Happened #2''

Since I have been creating a lot of new Witty Art this year, I thought it'd be nice to share a bit of ''The Making Of...''. Especially since I have been throwing some other materials and techniques in the Witty Mix as well, such as graphite pencils, conté crayon and charcoal. I even started experimenting with making collages, which started off completely by coincidence - or by accident, depending on how you like at it, but I will tell you about that in a later blogpost. 

For now, I'd like to share with you the making of: ''Once Upon A Time... Never Happened! #4'' Two. The first Witty Collage Art Series ever! And I have to say, I am quite please with the result. Especially when, as I said, it never was intended this way. But, as said, I will elaborate on that more, later!

Pictured above and below: step 1-4.

And here's step 5: the final result!