Hans Walraven

Work ethos:

In general I work mainly as a painter but once ever so often I tend to leave the flat canvas to focus on other work methods such as installations or video art. My work is deliberately eclectic; I ‘zap’ in a researching way along the possibilities that different topics and techniques offer me and let these possibilities guide me. It’s because of this work ethos that I make figurative painting next to my abstract work, and that this work can be perceived in different ways, it is full of various, sometimes contra dictionary themes and content: this can vary from for example a still life picturing an operating room in a hospital to porn to the drama of the children of Goebbels.

Why the choice to work in a way that can be perceived as grotesque executed in a seemingly random way?

I believe that eclecticism and a certain level of opportunism have taken a solid role within the nowadays society. Over the last few centuries solid values and big ideologies have evaporated and this has not been without consequences for the Art world. Concepts such as truth, originality, geniality and consistency have largely lost their meaning. Now, with the start of the 21st century people are searching for new certainties / values in a world that is much more complex, bigger and faster. As an artist I experience this confusion, inconsistency and things that loose their meaning and like to use them as themes within my work, I like to play around with them. For example I could be working on an abstract painting as well as a painting depicting victims of war carrying the title ‘harvest’ simultaneously.

The choice of materials and techniques show just as much variation as variety in topics and contents in my work. I work with ‘waste’ materials such as scraps of fabric, plastic and waste from building sites, pieces of wood and other remains of the consumerism society of today. 
Next to these materials I like to experiment with acrylics, for example I like to apply acrylic to a glass plate and let it dry so they can be removed and re-applied in their dry state to the canvas. I find this way of working very fascinating as the paint is transferred in it’s dry and original state from glass to canvas and through this process shows its true nature: It’s simply a layer of plastic. For me this method shapes a distance and inapproachability.

Within both material choices; the waste material and acrylics, I produce work within which I research two topics.

The first one is the complexity of image and its meaning. I like to send the viewer into different directions by using materials that are recognizable and have symbolic meanings next to the ‘pre-prepared’ acrylics, that have a certain abstract expression. The images I make could very often be explained in different ways;  you have to be able to see certain things in it but are not entirely sure at the same time. You could say that I am looking for the ‘In-between’.

A second recurring theme I use is inaccessibility. My canvases have to attract the viewer as well as repulse them. This is the reason the surface of the canvas feels ‘caked up’ and will leave out almost any sense of spaciousness even though the image depicted is a figurative one. 
You could say that the consistency in my work could be found within the way the surface is materialised. Whilst I work in both a figurative or abstract way, I research the meaning of images, the value they still have for me, and what they still mean to others.

Eventually I will remain, even after all relativism, a romanticist and will always trust in the consoling effect of true beauty.