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WORKS

Johannes Steendam

It’s a translation of those emotions and concepts that can not be visualised in another way but in abstract painting because these emotions and concepts are abstract themselves. It’s an act of freedom and exploration. The unusual medium with its own specific characteristics are appropriate and create singulair images that translate and tell the narrative with depth and compositions of colors and lines. There is movement, velocity and in every sense it is all about time and transformation. Due to the use of these characteristics like its fluidity creating images that are hazy, unsharp and diffused. In the end compositions of lines and strokes made with used engine motoroil on heavy paper or wood.

Finding new routes and explorations led to making Oilfileds. The Oilfields are made with used motor oil from different cars and engines that I put to paper or wood. The pallet of colors is extended every time I get a can of oil. Also I run out of certain colors that can not be replaced, they all have their own specific tone and characteristics. Defined by the engine, the use and care of the car by its owner. 

The medium in itself is also has a very close connection to the journey, not just that it makes the world go round it has to travel through a complex system of transport and processes of refinement to be usable for it can be just in the car that you drive on various journeys you make in the daily live and not to forget memorable vacations and trips. It is in a way connected to your personal travels and what you experience in them. And that is abstract, as life itself is abstract.