Frans Aussems

Making the past present

Il faut etre de son temps. My way of processing my experiences in the present is to keep the line with the past unbroken. My cultural roots lie in European culture. Entering into conversation with older cultural voices is thus expressing continuity and gaining a deeper meaning. In doing so I do not keep my own time outside my work, but search a dialogue with them. There are many cultural voices that matter. This makes current modern art so interesting and significant to me. Which is precisely why in turn I look differently at my own cultural roots now.

Process

My art is improvisation. Short bursts of creativity. I am curious about where my line is going. Oftentimes there is an initial idea or plan and somewhere in the process I let it react with the lines. And so I continue. I put myself on the spot with lines and let them confront, oppose, tackle, or defy an idea, poem, desire, memory, dream image. When I put my hand or brush or pencil on the paper I do not yet know what is going to happen. When my hand starts moving I have to follow and react. That moment is very exciting, comparable to going over the edge at the beginning of a black ski slope. It is not a smooth linear process, but bumping and colliding. The surprise is my greatest reward. I rarely make sketches, sometimes a scribble during the process to get a feel for a line that I want to draw. During the whole process my challenge is to not become a slave of the autonomous lines. Reign them in and let them coincide with my inner feelings. Like walking a tightrope.

Technique

I consider myself more of a draughtman than a painter. I work mainly on paper and apply many materials, except for oil paint, the long drying time of which gets too much in the way of my need to work quickly. In my graphic work I also tend toward the improvisational possibilities of monoprints.