Rooflight #1 Painting

Gijs Pape My work is based on space. Not just the space you can see but also the suggestion of space and the space you can experience. I started as a painter, for which I used a lot of architecture, abstract versions of reality where only the minimum parts remained with the maximum suggestion of space. In my more recent work I use elements from architecture as building blocks for my sculptures, sculptures that have become more and more three dimensional, but still represent the same principle. I think that it stems from my frustration about all the bustle in our lives. I don’t just mean the busy lives most of us lead, but also the constant stream of traffic and noise and especially the visual bustle. Here in the Netherlands it’s very difficult to find places where you can get away from all these things. When you’re standing in the middle of the moorlands you still see airplanes fly over and you still hear the highway in the distance. There’s no emptiness anywhere, broadly speaking. In my three dimensional work I try to create the ultimate space experience with as little as possible. Of course I haven’t completely succeeded yet, otherwise I’d be finished now. You can look at my work as the expression form of something conceptual, in a way this is the research. I sometimes hear from people who are looking at my work that they’re curious to see whether there’s something behind it, literally, and that the work suggests that you can look through it to something else. When I hear that, I think, well, I’m not the only one who understands it and that’s great to know. The work has to compel the viewer in its simplicity to make a next step in his or her head; it should make you think or fantasize, and I think that’s also the power of abstraction. Gijs Pape