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Matter and More
Essay by Gerrit Willems, published 28 May 2024
At Upstream Gallery, the solo exhibition Guardians by Frank Ammerlaan is on view. “Not all meaning can be directly read from a work, but that is not necessary either,” writes Gerrit Willems about it. “You do not need to know that lead originated from uranium and now protects us from radioactive radiation, and thus protects us from ‘its former self’.” But for those who look carefully, something inevitably comes through of what is enclosed within the material itself.
At Upstream Gallery in Amsterdam, Frank Ammerlaan presents his newest work in the exhibition Guardians. The title does not refer to superheroes from a Marvel story, but to the Pole Stars by which one can navigate and determine one’s course. Due to light pollution, these stars are now barely visible, and Ammerlaan experiences this as a loss. The connection between modern city dwellers and the cosmos, the transcendent, is disappearing, and precisely that connection is an important source for him. His work may therefore be seen as a veiled critique of our polluting society, though this is not his primary concern as an artist. What matters to him is the timeless life force of the universe, not its temporary damage.
The selection Ammerlaan shows offers a strong impression of his versatility; it is nothing less than a small survey of his abilities. In his case, one truly has to speak of “ability.” Before attending the Gerrit Rietveld Academie and later the Royal College of Art in London, he trained as a furniture maker. There he learned to work precisely and in detail, with sensitivity to materials. That craftsmanship now forms the foundation of his practice. He strives for perfect execution, preferably without imperfections or sloppiness, and follows a working plan meticulously. For Ammerlaan, there are no useful accidents once he has begun working.
Ammerlaan himself also categorizes his work according to the material from which it is made. In Mirror of Matter, the title of a major survey last year at Simões de Assis Gallery in Brazil, he presented different works grouped by material. There were works of lead and galvanized metal, canvases on which oil stains had been fixed, paintings of weather-discolored fabric, and canvases whose paint was enriched with oxidized iron and pulverised meteorite.
For Ammerlaan, matter is not a passive component of a painting, but an active constituent of form, color, and meaning. He uses the properties of materials to express his wonder at the world and the cosmos. Secondary to that, he uses the possibilities of these materials to create visually compelling images. What has fascinated him from the beginning of his artistic career is the constant transformation of everything. Nothing in the expanding universe is stable. Everything is in motion, decays, emerges, grows, changes. Life decays into dust, and from dust life emerges. Ideas for new work do not come to him from art itself, but from scientific knowledge about the fabric of the world, and from his interest in what transcends that knowledge: physics and metaphysics, chemistry and alchemy, science and religion. A painting succeeds when he feels he has been able to bring together knowledge of the material world with thoughts about the immaterial.
“I organize a process through which I give the emotional, the elusive, and the indescribable a place,” he says. A painting therefore does not emerge spontaneously and is not dependent on inspiration or sudden insight. No improvisation or expressionism. And although he often works on something for a long time, he is not an artist who endlessly changes things until the desired result appears.
He also says, “I investigate the possibilities of abstraction for my paintings.” But unlike abstract art, where form, color, and material exist only for themselves and resist text, symbolism, and fantasy, Ammerlaan does not consider an interpretive reading of his paintings an intrusion upon their perception. On the contrary, he aims to create paintings that represent something of the mystery of the cosmos.
Take the ‘patchwork’ paintings, for instance, assembled from pieces of cotton or jute that he first left outdoors in the garden of his studio. These fabrics fade under the sun’s radiation and discolor through exposure to the weather; they absorb the outside world. Using a computer, he then designs a pattern of shapes whose forms and colors fit together in such a way that an attractive image emerges. In these works, he wanted the planes to form a geometric pattern that visually suggests spatial depth. One could say that here the painter in him comes to the surface — and that is true. Just as craftsmanship forms a foundation, so does painting itself. He thinks like a painter. “Painting is a medium with which I am familiar. From there I developed further.” Yet his compositions do not directly refer to painting history, but rather to the way exact sciences illustrate or visualize facts and insights. Those diagrams, spirals, and isometric figures are loosely interpreted and adapted by Ammerlaan for his compositions. The patterns and lines in the meteorite works, for example, are based on arcs, waves, and semicircles that evoke planetary orbits. And in the lead works one sees holes and protrusions that could represent curved cosmic spaces.
The oil-spill paintings are created differently. Here there is no composition or pattern he can fully control, but there is a fixed procedure for making them. Ammerlaan wanted to preserve the fleeting perception of an oil slick, such as one sometimes sees on a road or on water. Such a stain appears and disappears depending on the viewer’s position and the angle at which light falls upon it — much like a rainbow. By collaborating with a chemist, he succeeded in fixing such an oil stain onto canvas. In a bath of water, an oil spill is created using a mixture of chemicals. A canvas lies in the bath, and by draining the water, the stain is fixed onto the fabric. In this way, a fragile and shifting natural phenomenon is summoned into the order of the artist.
Not all meaning can be directly read from a work, but that is not necessary. You do not need to know that lead originated from uranium and now protects us from radioactive radiation, and thus from “its former self.” Look at the curves of stacked sheets of lead, at the color variations that may change completely over time. You do not need to know that meteorite or iron filings were used. Look at the shimmering patterns created with them, look at how the heavy lead appears light and dances like wrapping paper. Spectacular iridescent oil stains, complex constellations of triangles that do not tire the eye. If you look at the works in this way, something inevitably comes through of what is enclosed within the material itself.