The works in this series are characterized by a change in the perception of the creative process. I have broken away from the traditional approaches so that I can keep reinventing the wheel, failing forward in a playful manner. This method is not efficient, but after a quarter of a century of educational wanderings and many moments of despair, I have found my method.
At the jewelers education where I studied goldsmithing, any form of creativity that leaned toward the conceptual was ruthlessly punished as tinkering. Or it was labeled “unwearable”, which was equivalent to worthless as far as the craftsmen were concerned. But mostly ugly. Ugly, because everyone knows what beautiful jewelry is, right? At the art academy, the pursuit of beauty was dismissed as a distraction from the conceptual and finding or making art “beautiful” was the most deadly remark that could be attached to the work.
These dogmas mixed like oil and water and after many failures to unite these methods, I came to the conclusion that I had better draw my own plans. Leaving art for science seemed like a logical step. However, I did not like an objective, research-oriented approach to art on the basis of endless interviews and literature research, and after some wanderings I once again ended up with actually creating art again. What I learned during this search: combining knowledge of techniques and materials with process-based but playfully developing ideas. And the study of cultural studies turned out to be a great generator of inspiration, as I could now draw on the scientific sources that I learned to find at the university. With these tools I developed assemblage as my main technique, a form of expression in which work is created intuitively and organically. Where professional knowledge of connections and material helps to keep the whole together. And during the process, knowledge and research form the framework and concept of the works.
Learning by living, playfully discovering and failing to find one truth led to looking with new eyes. To Faalspelingen (Failplays): recognizable forms such as tools, relics, weapons and jewelry fail to fulfill the function that is expected, but serve a different purpose: that of the game of creating and contemplation.
