about my work and method
When I started working as a visual artist,
more that twenty years ago, I did not consciously make use of
mathematics and geometry in the process of realizing my ideas.
The scientific approach was, certainly at that time, not a goal
in itself. Instinctively, though, I consistently obeyed natural
laws. In other words, every step in making a work had to be
a logical one, certainly not resulting from feeling, contrary
to what my teachers used to stress; for them even the measurements
of a base were supposed to be a matter of feeling; al matters
pertaining to composition, scale, color and placement were to
be solved intuitively. I wanted rules, so, first of all, I rejected
composition: while I was still at school one of my teachers
declared me crazy for calculating the volumes of boxes we were
to make and assemble into a composition. I wanted their volumes
to be equal while their dimensions varied, attempting to exclude
arbitrariness. For the same reason my work never existed out
of more than two parts which were identical and combined in
such a way that they formed a unity. My avoidance of please
yourself composition has always been consistent. This also applies
to the surface. Later on the surface of my work became plastic
but only in such a way that its' plasticity was the direct result
of a linear movement of my tools, following guidelines which
in themselves constituted orthogonal frameworks. As my work
evolved, the means became more important to me than the results.
With this shift of interest I began to reevaluate my method
and theory of construction, the results themselves becoming
more and more witnesses to the means, or evidence of a process.
When I work in conjunction with architecture its' orthogonal
framework is assimilated by mine and my work is superimposed
on it. Initially I mainly occupied myself with the circular
motion within this framework. It seems that in the Dutch constructive
tradition the curved line has always been taboo. For me though
it took me around corners and gave me the possibility to express
my ideas about the nonexistence of limited first, second, third
and let alone the fourth dimensions, or rather the delimitation
thereof.
Actually I don't find it important whether
I can be called a landscape architect, environmental designer
or even a sculptor for that matter. My work overlaps many fields.
I do feel that, as an artist, my works should go beyond just
the designing itself. Adding one's sculpture to a landscape
can be very exiting (see Henry Moore). Creating a landscape
around a sculpture needs more explaining: this can be a dangerous
undertaking because it is an unnatural act to have a sculpture
first and then pretend surroundings for it. You would be trying
to marry two totally different entities. One of my first projects
started out by the architect asking me to make a sculpture for
a garden with a pond which he had sketched (DSW project - see
my website). But, I was free to design the pond myself - he
added that I would even be free to design the whole garden.
I couldn't put it in words then, but I did understand that it
would not work - to design a sculpture and then a garden to
complement it. So I decided to make an environment in which
I could imagine myself being there - using elements from my
surroundings which had individual qualities of their own: traditional
pruned linden trees, traditional curbstones, surfaces of grass,
moving water, an impenetrable lava stone field and elements
which I created myself - combining them into a kind of environmental
assemblage of items which melted together into a visual
arranged presentation with a contemplative Zen garden-like appeal. Maybe
there are better ways to formulate this, but this is what came
out of my keyboard now. I remember showing my initial sketch
to Henry Moore in Italy the summer of 1970. He told me that
he appreciated the fact that I had incorporated elements which
I shaped myself into this environment. At that time I had already
started to doubt whether this was actually an indispensable
thing. Why shouldn't one be able to create a totally new visual
and spatial experience by only using existing material and objects?
In 1971 I started another environmental/landscape project into
which I introduced a bronze sculptural element of my own - the Walburg project. After this the only landscape-like project
into which I introduced a sculptural element of my own was the
Suvanto Puisto, the park-project in Kajaani, Finland. I
wonder if Henry Moore's words had that great an impact on me.
I sometimes do feel the necessity of having a main sculptural
element, which should not be an existing object from our daily
environment with which we are already acquainted. I do use these
as secondary elements of an environment just because of their
inherent meaning). At the same time a personal sculptural element
should not have too much influence - it should remain quite
elementary and not dominate its surroundings.
