How would you describe the style of your work?
My works are large archetypal representational images, made from layer upon layer of translucent packing tape, applied to clear Plexiglas and placed in front of a light box to give the image shadow and depth. I see my tape art as a form of painting. The 2-inch tape acts as a wide brush, and the light behind the panels as an alchemist's luminous blending medium. In working with tape, like in painting, accident and control are always present.
How you came to working with tape?
My Tape Art is a conversation with light. I started it like a traditional stained glass artist, but with tape: I found I could continue my conversation with light, but in a more expedient manner. I might have never thought of this “medium” if not for my working in stained glass. Yet, tapes happened to be much more than just a replacement of the stained glass medium. It miraculously bonded together all my previous experiences.
Is it still a form of conceptual art?
I would call it post-conceptual, because my discovery of tape suffused with light has allowed me to pursue the making of an image where meaning is passing through, not as a conceptual intention, but as a fundamental condition of life. The tension between the image and its source, the conceit of the artist, posed against the tape previously ignorant of its value as a “medium”, is the primary meaning of this work over and above the selected subject.
Are there certain motifs or topics that make you think ‘that’s perfect for tape art’?
I am interested in the recognizable cultural icons: I remake images, which have became classic in the context of various aspects of Western culture, and by doing so I highlight such issues as high and low culture, authorship and anonymity, different timescales as in timelessness of the original versus expediency of packing tape, and a phenomenon of presence as the inherence of prototypes within the tape images.
How exactly did you go from being an architect to ‘painting’ with tape? What do the two things have in common?
I was never able to be a real building architect. I was always trying to break through, extend boundaries, and work on the borders, so I was naturally falling out of architecture. I think painting with tape relates to architecture in a very strange way, a love - hate relationship. From one side, my images are constructed and calculated. From another side, my medium is all about deconstruction, anti-construction. My images all imply a fragile, temporary presence, unlike the grandeur architecture aspires to. Breaking the image into.... pixels, layers, converting matter into a visual illusion, this 'anti-matter' approach to the image, is central to my work. Most of my images only exist under certain conditions, like light, and may disappear at any moment.
These seem to all be recreations from photographs. Are you doing any original art?
I wouldn’t call my tapes photography based; they are image based. They are about recognition: recognition of a tactile sensation, recognition of an image, recognition of a memory. They are very much play-it-again; it is the very essence of my work. People react to my tapes because it talks to them on many levels starting from the very basic level of tactile feeling – almost everyone hold this tape in their hands and is familiar with the sensation of striking a line with it. Many may almost feel it and hear the sound of adhesive being pulled off the roll. And then I build on it. I add the images, which are as familiar as the material itself.
How does inspiration come to you or do you seek it out?
I go mostly by motivation: I conceive an idea and live with it, and if in a while it still feels right to me, I work on it. My struggle is to render it in the most direct and simple way.
Do you see your art as universal, as globally understandable?
I myself am a person with no country; maybe that’s why I am interested in universal subjects and a classic, representational style. My material is pretty common too.
If you would send me a parcel – how would that look like?
My parcel would look like any other parcel, but it will take me quite a few attempts to get it right.