Author: Fred Roeske

Title thesis:

Negation in art

Link to thesis (PDF)

The tradition of painting is so rich that it is
both and play ground and habitat for me,
that I will never be bored with. This tradition,
with all its references and facts, I combine
my paintings with photos, drawings and
images from my personal archive. My
research into the matter of the medium is
focused on finding new intense syntheses in
which the tradition is still palpable.

Titel scriptie:

Negatie in kunst

Link naar scriptie (PDF)

De traditie van de schilderkunst is zo rijk dat
ze voor mij een speeltuin en een habitat is
waar ik nooit op uitgekeken zal raken. Deze
traditie, met al haar referenties en
feitelijkheden, combineer ik in mijn
schilderijen met foto’s, tekeningen en
afbeeldingen uit mijn persoonlijk archief.
Mijn onderzoek naar de materialiteit van het
medium is gericht op het vinden van nieuwe,
broeierige syntheses waarin de traditie
steeds voelbaar blijft.

Title thesis:

Collective Memory in the Works of
Contemporary Romanian Artists


Subject:
Identifying usage of collective memory in the
works of several contemporary Romanian
artists


Link to thesis (PDF)

My work stems from a need to change and
twist the context of present or past events,
existing or non-existing objects, appropriate
and personalise through a
conscious/subconscious filter, making use of
dreams, reflection, auto-reflection, clichés and
popular culture references and placing myself
along the lines of Conceptual Art, Dadaism, Pop
Art and Arte Povera.

Title thesis:

Collective Memory in the Works of
Contemporary Romanian Artists


Subject:
Identifying usage of collective memory in the
works of several contemporary Romanian
artists


Link to thesis (PDF)

My work stems from a need to change and
twist the context of present or past events,
existing or non-existing objects, appropriate
and personalise through a
conscious/subconscious filter, making use of
dreams, reflection, auto-reflection, clichés and
popular culture references and placing myself
along the lines of Conceptual Art, Dadaism, Pop
Art and Arte Povera.

Title thesis:
THIS THESIS IS A RESEARCH INTO THE PHYSICAL RELATIONSHIP TO SPACE
Subject:
The concept of the body in a space is essential in my work, whether in video, installations or sculptures. Space, interspace, emptiness, void, their precense intrigued me. My interest in the physical relationship to space has led to the separation of this topic into ‘Body in Space’ and ‘Body in Time’. In art jargon the English word body means more than on just the human body. It also concerns the more abstract notion of volume. Which concepts are created with regard to ‘body in space’ and ‘body in time’ in modern day art?

Link to thesis (PDF)

Making visible the simple that hides complexityMY WORK IS RELATED TO THE SIZE OFF MY REACH
It is not about autonomous sculptures. The sculptures are related to a movement that I perform in a space, while making the sculpturesAs the body shapes the sculpture, the material is at least as decisive for the shape of the sculpture. At the same time I push the material and the form to its limits. The works are related to my body. Sculptures that work as an inscription of a movement in a space.

Titel scriptie:
DEZE SCRIPTIE IS EEN ONDERZOEK NAAR DE FYSIEKE VERHOUDING TOT RUIMTE

Onderwerp:
Het concept van het lichaam in de ruimte is zeer essentieel voor mijn kunstpraktijk en in mijn werken, of het nu video, installaties of sculpturen zijn. Ruimte, tussenruimte, leegte, haar aanwezigheid intrigeerd mij.
Mijn interesse in de fysiek verhouding tot ruimte heeft geleid tot het opsplitsen van dit onderwerp in ‘Body in Space’ en ‘Body in
Time’. In kunst-jargon betekent het Engelse woord ‘body’ meer dan enkel het fysieke lijf. Het betreft ook in meer abstracte zin het volume. Welke begrippen en concepten worden gecreëerd met betrekking tot lichaam in de ruimte ́ of ́lichaam in de tijd ́ in de hedendaagse kunst?

Link naar scriptie (PDF)

‘Het simpele zichtbaar te maken waar de ingewikkeld
heid achter schuil gaat’
MY WORK IS RELATED TO THE SIZE OFF MY REACH
It is not about autonomous sculptures. The sculptures are related to a movement that I perform in a space, while making the sculpturesAs the body shapes the sculpture, the material is at least as decisive for the shape of the sculpture. At the same time I push the material and the form to its limits. The works are related to my body. Sculptures that work as an inscription of a movement in a space.

Title thesis:

Communion through exclusion
How can exclusion lead to communion?

Subject:
When society fails, new subcultures are born as a resistance to the current state of society. In the exclusion from society, a new form of communion is born. People who live in stigmatised areas in harsh conditions where they feel excluded from society can, through music, clothing, art, etc., gain a voice to be heard and listened to, an expression of their own existence. Creating a communion in his or her own being. Some by silence and others by showing resistance, some through music, some through visual expression such as graffiti and street art and some by throwing bricks.



Link to thesis (PDF)

In life the decisions I make often come from an impulsive act. From an intuitive decision making rather than logical as cause and effect.

My approach to painting starts the same way, intuitive combined with stern appraisal, not knowing what a painting will look like when completed.

To relate to the cause and effect requires a transparent and simplified view of the world. Such is, however, not the world to us humans.
Each painting becomes a chapter, as windows to something else.

“What´s magical about painting is that the thing about time is that its always over. What happens when you paint is that you can reserve it. You can’t do that with life” [Per Kirkeby]

Title thesis:

Communion through exclusion
How can exclusion lead to communion?

Subject:
When society fails, new subcultures are born as a resistance to the current state of society. In the exclusion from society, a new form of communion is born. People who live in stigmatised areas in harsh conditions where they feel excluded from society can, through music, clothing, art, etc., gain a voice to be heard and listened to, an expression of their own existence. Creating a communion in his or her own being. Some by silence and others by showing resistance, some through music, some through visual expression such as graffiti and street art and some by throwing bricks.



Link to thesis (PDF)

In life the decisions I make often come from an impulsive act. From an intuitive decision making rather than logical as cause and effect.

My approach to painting starts the same way, intuitive combined with stern appraisal, not knowing what a painting will look like when completed.

To relate to the cause and effect requires a transparent and simplified view of the world. Such is, however, not the world to us humans.
Each painting becomes a chapter, as windows to something else.

“What´s magical about painting is that the thing about time is that its always over. What happens when you paint is that you can reserve it. You can’t do that with life” [Per Kirkeby]

Title thesis:

The Presence of Absence


Subject:

As an artist born in Japan, but now living and studying in the Netherlands, I have developed a particular viewpoint, which is born of merging and integrating two contrasting cultures. The intention and purpose of my thesis is to evaluate contemporary art, largely governed by Western values, from my Eastern point of view and personal perspective. This opens up a dialogue that leads to new insights. My analysis centres around the concept of ‘Ma’ (‘negative space’ or ‘space in-between’), with its origins deep in Japanese culture, but with its global meaning. In the first chapter I start with an investigation of the perceptual differences between ‘Ma’ in Japan and ‘Ma’ in the Western countries, in the domain of human interaction, subjective self, and physical environment. Chapter 2 examines and analyses ‘Ma’ in the works of both Western and Japanese artists such as Marcel Duchamp, John Cage, Francis Alys, On Kawara, and Rei Naito. My line of thinking is inspired by mixtures of Western and Eastern philosophers such as Roland Barthes, George Gurdjieff, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho), Dogen Zenji, Hu Shih, and others.


Link to thesis (PDF)

I combine a variety of media such as video, installation, and performance. As for physical materials, I like to use the basic elements such as earth, water, wood, and stones. I enjoy their smells, their feel and touch – it satisfies a basic, primary urge.

Being a female artist, my recent artistic fascination revolves around the womb -matrix- and I bring its spirits in my work. Honestly, I am surprised how mysterious this female organ is! It is so closely connected to the nature. It reflects all of earth’s cycles, the waxing and waning, the ebb and flow, the changes of the seasons and many of the ups and downs we experience in our lives. For me it also symbolises the connection between this world and another world, the gate we pass at birth and through which we give life. It is a magical “space in-between”; a meeting point between the present, the past, and the future; a space of silence, of being, and of female consciousness, where all paradoxical parallels co-exist.

Thanks to Fontrodona Art Space

Title thesis:

The Presence of Absence


Subject:

As an artist born in Japan, but now living and studying in the Netherlands, I have developed a particular viewpoint, which is born of merging and integrating two contrasting cultures. The intention and purpose of my thesis is to evaluate contemporary art, largely governed by Western values, from my Eastern point of view and personal perspective. This opens up a dialogue that leads to new insights. My analysis centres around the concept of ‘Ma’ (‘negative space’ or ‘space in-between’), with its origins deep in Japanese culture, but with its global meaning. In the first chapter I start with an investigation of the perceptual differences between ‘Ma’ in Japan and ‘Ma’ in the Western countries, in the domain of human interaction, subjective self, and physical environment. Chapter 2 examines and analyses ‘Ma’ in the works of both Western and Japanese artists such as Marcel Duchamp, John Cage, Francis Alys, On Kawara, and Rei Naito. My line of thinking is inspired by mixtures of Western and Eastern philosophers such as Roland Barthes, George Gurdjieff, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho), Dogen Zenji, Hu Shih, and others.


Link to thesis (PDF)

I combine a variety of media such as video, installation, and performance. As for physical materials, I like to use the basic elements such as earth, water, wood, and stones. I enjoy their smells, their feel and touch – it satisfies a basic, primary urge.

Being a female artist, my recent artistic fascination revolves around the womb -matrix- and I bring its spirits in my work. Honestly, I am surprised how mysterious this female organ is! It is so closely connected to the nature. It reflects all of earth’s cycles, the waxing and waning, the ebb and flow, the changes of the seasons and many of the ups and downs we experience in our lives. For me it also symbolises the connection between this world and another world, the gate we pass at birth and through which we give life. It is a magical “space in-between”; a meeting point between the present, the past, and the future; a space of silence, of being, and of female consciousness, where all paradoxical parallels co-exist.

Thanks to Fontrodona Art Space

Title thesis:

Supernormality


Subject:
Supernormality is that state where something normal is so normal that it becomes strange again.

In my thesis I look at that odd, exaggerated normality – which I dub ‘supernormality’. I look at how it works and how it can be used – in art specifically – as a strategy to look at and showcase normality, to reflect on the constant navigation between needing to be normal on the one hand, and wanting to be special on the other.


Link to thesis (PDF)

I look at expectations. At norms, group behaviour, being inside versus outside. The expectations of shared beliefs, a desire to be uniform. And together with those desires, simultaneous attraction and disgust, a tiring unease.

I take a normal artefact or scene, one that most of us will know or recognise: a meeting, a walk, a house, a dinner. Then, I highlight it, set it apart, make it strange, make it fail, make it absurd.

The exact object of the scene is not so important. It is once removed from what is shown, the content at a meta level. It is the ‘how’, not the ‘what’, that counts. In the assembly and presentation there are humors of melancholia, artificiality, childlike guises, being together and apart in a group, a want for an experience.

The viewer – having become an unwilling participant, because this is also about them – is reminded of the strangeness of our behaviours, of what we do to belong or not belong. With it I can hopefully create, or show the possibility of creating, liberty, a free space.

Title thesis:

Supernormality


Subject:
Supernormality is that state where something normal is so normal that it becomes strange again.

In my thesis I look at that odd, exaggerated normality – which I dub ‘supernormality’. I look at how it works and how it can be used – in art specifically – as a strategy to look at and showcase normality, to reflect on the constant navigation between needing to be normal on the one hand, and wanting to be special on the other.


Link to thesis (PDF)

I look at expectations. At norms, group behaviour, being inside versus outside. The expectations of shared beliefs, a desire to be uniform. And together with those desires, simultaneous attraction and disgust, a tiring unease.

I take a normal artefact or scene, one that most of us will know or recognise: a meeting, a walk, a house, a dinner. Then, I highlight it, set it apart, make it strange, make it fail, make it absurd.

The exact object of the scene is not so important. It is once removed from what is shown, the content at a meta level. It is the ‘how’, not the ‘what’, that counts. In the assembly and presentation there are humors of melancholia, artificiality, childlike guises, being together and apart in a group, a want for an experience.

The viewer – having become an unwilling participant, because this is also about them – is reminded of the strangeness of our behaviours, of what we do to belong or not belong. With it I can hopefully create, or show the possibility of creating, liberty, a free space.

Title thesis:

What is a Museum?


Link to thesis (PDF)

In situ at the Rietveld Academie; more and more my art practice gets entangled with its surroundings. Its relation with the building, space, material, people, and – as a result – a leftover of a performance stage. In the past years I’ve worked with the notion of having Art to disappear; I haven’t succeeded so far. Even worse it’s starting to get a shape and a form, whether a piece of text on a wall, a photo, a ready-made piece, an assembled sculpture, an unnoticed installation or a(n) (art) conversation.

Title thesis:

What is a Museum?


Link to thesis (PDF)

In situ at the Rietveld Academie; more and more my art practice gets entangled with its surroundings. Its relation with the building, space, material, people, and – as a result – a leftover of a performance stage. In the past years I’ve worked with the notion of having Art to disappear; I haven’t succeeded so far. Even worse it’s starting to get a shape and a form, whether a piece of text on a wall, a photo, a ready-made piece, an assembled sculpture, an unnoticed installation or a(n) (art) conversation.

Title thesis:

Procession of the Damned

Life near the event horizon of a postmodern black hole


Subject:

“Sensitivity for the expressiveness of images, and knowledge of literature are strengths of Barbara that come together beautifully in her thesis. The thesis can be read both as a text and picture essay. The text intelligently circles around the first signs of a possible global, literary and philosophical apocalypse. She then isolates poor images from the global digital B-universe feeding them with pleasure to the hungry black hole, black of ink… Admirable thesis, tip of an iceberg … “ [Q.S. Serafijn]


Link to thesis (PDF)

‘When you are young, you always expect the world is going to end. And then you get older and the world still chugs along and you are forced to re-evaluate your stance on the apocalypse as well as your own relationship to time and death. You realize that the world will indeed continue, with or without you, and the pictures you see in your head. So you try to understand the pictures instead.’

I have carried this quote in the back of my mind for quite some time now, while trying to make physical sense of our technological and virtual world, and groping my way through the materials and objects scattered around the studio and other people’s backyards.

Title thesis:

Procession of the Damned

Life near the event horizon of a postmodern black hole


Subject:

“Sensitivity for the expressiveness of images, and knowledge of literature are strengths of Barbara that come together beautifully in her thesis. The thesis can be read both as a text and picture essay. The text intelligently circles around the first signs of a possible global, literary and philosophical apocalypse. She then isolates poor images from the global digital B-universe feeding them with pleasure to the hungry black hole, black of ink… Admirable thesis, tip of an iceberg … “ [Q.S. Serafijn]


Link to thesis (PDF)

‘When you are young, you always expect the world is going to end. And then you get older and the world still chugs along and you are forced to re-evaluate your stance on the apocalypse as well as your own relationship to time and death. You realize that the world will indeed continue, with or without you, and the pictures you see in your head. So you try to understand the pictures instead.’

I have carried this quote in the back of my mind for quite some time now, while trying to make physical sense of our technological and virtual world, and groping my way through the materials and objects scattered around the studio and other people’s backyards.

Title thesis:

The Mountain, The Cave And The Lion Whisperer
Art And Myth Through The Ages

Subject:
Analysis of and reflection on the Gordian Knot of art and myth


Link to thesis (PDF)

I often involve people in my work in a very direct way. History and current events are my raw materials. I work as a writer, journalist and artist. In my visual work these disciplines overlap.

My graduation project is based on the case of Olaf H., a possible new judicial error. Olaf H. is a truck driver, serving a life sentence since 2004 for a double murder and attempted murder. Philosopher Ton Derksen published a book about this case, in which he shows that the evidence against Olaf H. is very slim.

With five actors I reconstructed the murders, in two versions: ‘Olaf shoots’ and ‘Olaf hides’. The reconstructions where done on a set that matched the crime scene in terms of geography and sight lines. This resulted in a video installation about (tunnel)vision, (re)construction and truth.

Titel scriptie:

De berg, de grot en de leeuwenfluisteraar
Kunst en mythe van ver voor nul tot nu

Subject:
Analysis of and reflection on the Gordian Knot of art and myth


Link naar scriptie (PDF)

I often involve people in my work in a very direct way. History and current events are my raw materials. I work as a writer, journalist and artist. In my visual work these disciplines overlap.

My graduation project is based on the case of Olaf H., a possible new judicial error. Olaf H. is a truck driver, serving a life sentence since 2004 for a double murder and attempted murder. Philosopher Ton Derksen published a book about this case, in which he shows that the evidence against Olaf H. is very slim.

With five actors I reconstructed the murders, in two versions: ‘Olaf shoots’ and ‘Olaf hides’. The reconstructions where done on a set that matched the crime scene in terms of geography and sight lines. This resulted in a video installation about (tunnel)vision, (re)construction and truth.

Title thesis:

Elsewhere

Subject:
Elsewhere researches the idea of foreignness by looking closer at how our environment, our stories and the objects we own are given shape. We design our objects, our nature, our narratives and they – in turn – direct our perceptions and beliefs continuously and almost seamlessly.

Various artists have been interviewed and their practices are discussed in relation to art’s potential to subvert our personal experiences by producing foreignness, and putting us in the position of the newcomer, the stranger who has to learn how to “read” the surroundings all over again. I argue that this situation doesn’t make us weaker, it rather empowers us with new imaginative space.

Link to thesis (PDF)

Collecting text and images from the environment that we live in, is the way I compose my works. I don’t create new images from scratch, instead I pick all kinds of different “parts” from what is around us, and I put them in the spotlight. I present them outside of their original context so that they can convey new meanings to the viewer, either remembered or imagined..

A window still looks like a window once I have captured it with my camera, isolated it from its physical surroundings with Photoshop and blown-up on a white wall. But from that white wall, that same window will also create new space for itself and will start to exist in our thoughts as something else.


It is essential for my work to be grounded in the cultural, social and physical environment and its architectures. For instance, how do smaller or bigger windows direct us towards a different behaviour, or different ideals even? What does it mean to my body or to my feelings that a door opens to the outside, instead of to the inside of a room? How does the meaning of words take shape in the language we speak, by us speaking it? The concrete construction of our surroundings, as much as the words and gestures that we use to communicate with others, construct our beliefs and imagination..

Art is my chance to place different elements of the daily environment as we know it in a context that is more free, where they can become something else than what they were initially intended to be. Especially formal elements of the environment that direct our thoughts and behaviour (words, objects) can be presented on their own, out of their original situation, so that they are allowed to become functionless and be only form. They can become something personal to the viewer, who is given the power and freedom to create his own story with them and so to own them anew.

Title thesis:

Elsewhere

Subject:
Elsewhere researches the idea of foreignness by looking closer at how our environment, our stories and the objects we own are given shape. We design our objects, our nature, our narratives and they – in turn – direct our perceptions and beliefs continuously and almost seamlessly.

Various artists have been interviewed and their practices are discussed in relation to art’s potential to subvert our personal experiences by producing foreignness, and putting us in the position of the newcomer, the stranger who has to learn how to “read” the surroundings all over again. I argue that this situation doesn’t make us weaker, it rather empowers us with new imaginative space.

Link to thesis (PDF)

Collecting text and images from the environment that we live in, is the way I compose my works. I don’t create new images from scratch, instead I pick all kinds of different “parts” from what is around us, and I put them in the spotlight. I present them outside of their original context so that they can convey new meanings to the viewer, either remembered or imagined..

A window still looks like a window once I have captured it with my camera, isolated it from its physical surroundings with Photoshop and blown-up on a white wall. But from that white wall, that same window will also create new space for itself and will start to exist in our thoughts as something else.


It is essential for my work to be grounded in the cultural, social and physical environment and its architectures. For instance, how do smaller or bigger windows direct us towards a different behaviour, or different ideals even? What does it mean to my body or to my feelings that a door opens to the outside, instead of to the inside of a room? How does the meaning of words take shape in the language we speak, by us speaking it? The concrete construction of our surroundings, as much as the words and gestures that we use to communicate with others, construct our beliefs and imagination..

Art is my chance to place different elements of the daily environment as we know it in a context that is more free, where they can become something else than what they were initially intended to be. Especially formal elements of the environment that direct our thoughts and behaviour (words, objects) can be presented on their own, out of their original situation, so that they are allowed to become functionless and be only form. They can become something personal to the viewer, who is given the power and freedom to create his own story with them and so to own them anew.

Title thesis:

Re-site
site, site-specific, site-related


Link to thesis (PDF)

My work focuses on the perception of place and space. With different mediums, like drawing, sculpture and photography, I explore the way we relate with the world around us through our senses.

Besides perception, I am interested in the way we interact with, inhabit and map space and place. Construction manuals, floor plans, roadmaps, Google maps and Google glass show an abstracted image of the world, but also manipulate this image and our interaction with the world. I reuse these mappings and representations to create a new awareness of place and scale in my work. Abstraction and visual distance is counterbalanced by a concentration on the material, tactility and the work process.

Titel scriptie:

Re-site
site, site-specifiek, site-gerelateerd


Link naar scriptie (PDF)

My work focuses on the perception of place and space. With different mediums, like drawing, sculpture and photography, I explore the way we relate with the world around us through our senses.

Besides perception, I am interested in the way we interact with, inhabit and map space and place. Construction manuals, floor plans, roadmaps, Google maps and Google glass show an abstracted image of the world, but also manipulate this image and our interaction with the world. I reuse these mappings and representations to create a new awareness of place and scale in my work. Abstraction and visual distance is counterbalanced by a concentration on the material, tactility and the work process.