Research into your favourite art piece could unexpectedly lead you into pulling the trigger
Every week, we ask an inspiring person to select their favourite art piece from the FRAEMd platform. We call these weekly posts ‘CURATED BY’ and we have loved seeing what people select and why. This week our special inspirator, Seroj de Graaf, selected and then decided to BUY his favourite piece. WOW. This just shows how far a little research can go into growing your own art collection. For Seroj, his research revealed a special connection that he had with the artist. He also describes noticing something magical and surreal in the artwork, finding it hard to understand how and why he became so emotionally engaged with the piece.
Keep reading to see which artwork Seroj bought and why…
For Future Reflections, 2014
Thijs Ebbe Fokkens
mdf, styrofoam, sand, neon
27x27x27cm
Edition 3 + 2 AP
Courtesy of Joey Ramone
ABOUT OUR ‘INSPIRATOR’ OF THIS WEEK
Seroj is a renowned Dutch product designer with a focus on lifestyle products and fashion accessories. His company, ‘by SEROJ’, was founded to empower businesses by supporting them to transform their product ideas into successful design products. Seroj is a spatial visual thinker and dedicated product designer with a fine eye for detail and a broad knowledge of materials and techniques. He is also curious and eager in the fields of art, manufacturing, tech and business. With Seroj’s unique combination of interests, we were really intrigued to see which artwork he would select.
THE THOUGHT BEHIND THE SELECTION
Seroj about the artwork: “Most of the art I feel connected to is sculptural but in particular, I'm drawn to mixed media artworks or works that have a certain sense of plasticity. When starting my search on FRAEMd I directly selected the filter ‘mixed media’. Scrolling through all the pages with artworks, I instantly got drawn into this little white cube feeling excited and ready to dive right into it. Every once in a while I got struck by this deep feeling of something resonating with me and that is when I know something is right. When I went to do more research on the artist, I soon realised that it was his work methodology that really caught my attention as it has a lot of similarities with my own vision and approach to design, mainly a process through trial and error. It is a process where the creator investigates, questions and then defines the work and its qualities by using all his/her personal senses while creating it. Part of this process is diving into the materials and details, shaping them and then taking a step back to re-evaluate. When observing artworks such as this one, I feel like reliving and resolving the process of ‘searching for form’ that the artist was going through.
I find the work For Future Reflections absolutely fascinating as the process of making the work seems quite visible. It also shows an interesting contrast of what happens in the world within one frame. It depicts not just a sand dune, but also a fascinating world due to the contrast between shadow and light. It is this and the hyper focus on light, that draws you in even closer. It feels like something extraordinary is happening within the frame of the box, whilst being conserved in a sort of terrarium (a glass container for plants). It feels quite surreal.
In our everyday lives, we are confined by our constant need to contextualize and understand everything. However, in this artwork, there is so much happening within the frame that it is difficult to define, contain and make assumptions. In the search for form you will notice that in order to make sense of what works, the artists has a genuine dialogue with the material that he uses. This work also reminds me of a work by Olafur Eliasson. In the Louisiana museum of modern art in Denmark, Eliasson’s solo exhibition called Riverbed, was a site specific project where he transformed the entire exhibition space into a rocky landscape. This raises the interesting question of: where does the canvas end?”
ABOUT THE ARTIST
The work of Thijs Ebbe Fokkens (1981) can be read as a story that alludes to scientific and religious endeavors that people undertake to get a grip on the world. His combinations of drawings, photographs, models and installations tell us of obscure moments and mysterious places.
Fokkens’ scenes and situations derive from the desire to capture significance and the search for an ideal vantage point to do so, to get a good look at notions about us, about the self and the tech, about nature, time and other narratives. Fokkens’ trail of thoughts and actions end up creating a space rather than stating a point. His ambiguous and poetic work creates a world full of promise and provides the opportunity to contemplate and wonder.
If you love this work as much as Seroj, there is one last edition left...
Purchase or preview the artwork on your own wall here
Learn more about our Inspirator of this week, Seroj.
Show us your favourite by using #fraemdcuratedby to become our next Inspirator.
