1894 Views
13
View In My Room
Painting, Oil on Paper
Size: 59.8 W x 19.7 H x 0.4 D in
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1894 Views
13
Featured in One to Watch
Featured in Rising Stars
Artist featured in a collection
ONE LINE Gold & resin on 640 gms high quality paper. "When I draw, I reduce myself, the motif and technique to the basest form of drawing to achieve an all-encompassing state of being „Human-Universe-Executer“. I draw the void around the line. I am focusing on the negative space around the line which ultimately represents the line in its truest form. My mind is clear, I feel my consciousness, my thoughts, my body and the world in and around me. I become the mere moment. There is only this one moment. Every time the same moment. Everywhere the same space. Everything else continues to noisily stream while I remain content in the fluidity of the present. Thoughts are never louder nor feelings more profound than in this contiguous state. My focus transcens into bare presence. Personality becomes formless and nameless. With each breath such emptiness is filled more and more. With every line I become closer to my real origin…" One of the most fundamental elements of art is the line as it is where all images must originate. The line in this series is amplified through the act of maximal reduction. It becomes the glorification of all forms and simultaneously the simplest of artistic acts. It thus represents the essential act and force of creation itself. The line, as the basis of art, may be seen as infinitely complex though it may be taken for granted in most works. In other words, the line is the genetic code of artistic rendering. ONE LINE is conceptually related to EACH LINE ONE BREATH, where the drawings are formed through the act of drawing each line during the length of a single exhale. As the work evolves, the artist achieves a form of spiritual transcendence wherein repetitive movements become all-encompassing. The artist is able to find a meditative space by translating his essential life-breath into a physical manifestation – each line in the work. In relation to EACH LINE ONE BREATH, then, this series took the purification a step further. As the artist reduced the creational act, its form, and his very mindset to the most basic level. The magnification of such a rudimentary concept formed a mantra of sorts: “One Line - one mind - one moment - one act.” Through striving to use ever-simpler forms, the artist strives to reach the inner selves of his audience. It is from this meditative practice that the artist penetrates our most complex thoughts. Simplicity leads to emptiness, the true space where the human mind resides. In the Japanese culture of Zen it called Ensō. It represents a moment where the mind is free such that neither the mind nor body are not restricted in their creative processes. Ensō is the embodiment of the state occupied by the mind at the precise moment of creation. Similarly, Shi Tao (Shih T'ao / Tao Chi) formulated this moment as a “principle of one holistic brushstroke as a medium for the articulation of a non-dualistic cosmos. The draw-write-act as a meditation in which the human-universe-executer and the observer will achieve a kind of inner-worldly transcendence.”
2014
Oil on Paper
One-of-a-kind Artwork
59.8 W x 19.7 H x 0.4 D in
Not Framed
Not applicable
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Netherlands.
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Netherlands
BIO: John Franzen (1981) was born in Aachen, Germany. Both parents were nurses. With 7 years he grew up in Belgium. Later he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Maastricht, Netherlands 2002-2007, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts. Working in various disciplines and materials, he focuses on the theme and production of complex frames of concepts with the focus of the inherent primordiality. He lives and works in Maastricht, Netherlands and as an artist and conceptor. ARTIST STATEMENT: An artist in his true nature is made of incomprehensible multitudes; he is the untidy culmination of a shaman who is not believing but praying, a scientist who is not searching but analyzing, an engineer who is not building but inventing, and a child who is not playing but dreaming. He exists in the paradoxical state of attempting to capture his own vast inner perceptions of reality in the confines of the outer world. His artwork is mystic ritual, scientific model and applied philosophy. His process may be compared to how priests or shamans work while praying. His art springs forth in a way similar to the emergence of holy offerings, that is, from a deep internalization of and total commitment to the unknowable source of everything. Despite this comparison, Franzen’s work remains immanently non-religious. While his process and product may be relatable to religious performance, his muse is rather the concept of the ‘Human-Universe-Executer.’ The ‘Human-Universe-Executer’ can create ad infinitum from the pure energy which he attempts to command. One act, one stroke, one move represent, in essence, all creation. Each further act is merely a repetition of the first and considered redundant. The artist must wrestle with how to accurately convey the fact that the urge to create is, rather than being inconsistent with nihilism, is intimately allied with it. Shi Tao formulated the principle of one holistic brushstroke as a medium for the articulation of a non-dualistic cosmos. According to this principle, the ‘Human-Universe-Executer’ and the observer achieve a kind of transcendence through the creational act. The one act is thus the most central concept upon which the work relies. In turn, his work reflects the void as source and muse of life itself. Franzen’s art can be seen as a spiritual mindset or mystical conception which has been adapted from Japanese Taoist and Zen philosophy.
Featured in Saatchi Art's curated series, One To Watch
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Artist featured by Saatchi Art in a collection
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