Rob Voerman
Artist Statement
Some years ago, I started a body of work in which I try to create the architecture of fictive communities living in remote areas or occupying existing city-landscapes. The communities will consist of a mixture of utopia, destruction and beauty, a symbiosis of hippie-communities from the seventies, with their often highly decorated self-build structures, the cabin of the Uni-bomber hidden in the Montana forests, art-deco and other influences. Romanticism combined with the grim qualities of terror. It is often a direct translation of destruction in a purely aesthetic form.
Materialized explosions are being transformed to wonderful domes, made of cathedral-glass and wood. By their rich decoration, they often make people think of religious associations. Other buildings seem totally inward looking, staring back with dark windows. The desire to change reality is materialized in architecture in which man try to flee society and start a utopian and completely autonomous world. On the other hand the work represents a mentality in which it tries to seek the conflict with this society. For example in the work “Moonshine”, in which an existing building is being annexed in a violent manner by a completely opposite architecture.
The work is an attempt to react on the rapidly changing society, an attempt to flee from it and an attempt to reflect on it without any moral judgment. Social changes with themes like terror, protectionism, fear for the unknown and the crash between religions, will definitely have had there impact on my work. I have seen my own country for example been changed from a tolerant country into a country which is fairly for the outside world, by which it became more and more intolerant and more inward-focused. But exactly pinpointing these influences and how my work can be analyzed, is impossible, as I work very much with intuition and the process is often partially unconscious. And I think that’s alright, as it gives people the possibility to look at my work in various layers and angles. The ambition to change, deny or manipulate reality is so strong, that I feel the need to actually make spaces that people can use or where people can enter. Functions that on the surface seem to be conflicting where brought together in a specially developed space/installation.
The undermining and manipulation of existing structures in my work, is an element I see as a supplement of the already existing content of my work. Apart from making new sculptures and prints, I do would like to develop these installations and ideas more and more too. I can even imagine that in the future I would make some permanent architectural features as well, beside my autonomous gallery- and museum-work
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