I didn’t know Paul Klemann had his own website and assumed he was too busy exhibiting and didn’t surf the web.
Klemann draws up his own dreams and has been doing this for a very long time. His compostions are as bizarre and raw as dreams can be. Often touching Freudian themes like love, death, sex and religion.
It is very hard to literally translate a dream into a drawing but Klemann has found a way. By his drawings he’s able to pen down an indefinable dreamworld.
You will not find many genuine drawing artists on the web. The collection of online portfolio’s on the net is dominated by illustrators and designers showcasing their pixelized skills with illustrator or photoshop. Often they can build slick (flashy) websites. But hey! ‘The Art of Drawing‘ is really something else. There aren’t many around believe me.
The portfolio of Erik Mattijssen spans over a period of fifteen years and you can see where he’s coming from. My own portfolio on this site goes back to 2001. Of course there’s more but it’s not on line.
I really like to see where I was a few years ago, I often imagine a tin red line that I hold on to. I am aware this red line goes through all my works and attached to it are my themes and skills. It helps me not to wander away from the story I want to tell and what I want to show.
It’s very nice to see what Mattijssen has done before. Those years are like a prologue to the chapter where he is now. You see his work evolving and I not only mean that his skills get better. He is drawing austere still lives with twigs in 1993, very linear and precize. Slowly his drawings become populated and more colourfull. His still lives become interiors; Mattijssen steps back and with ordinary elements in out of place arrangements he shows us some very eerie scenes. There his use of colour really doesn’t feel that odd anymore and that’s where I like Mattijssen most.
Even when he’s drawing little flowers, eatables and botttles I keep wondering: “What is this man is actually brewing there, in his studio?”
www.erikmattijssen.nl
You see, it takes quite a few years to get somewhere. When I’m drawing there’s no rush, I am still in the prologue.
In August and September I was in India.
I study yoga and meditation in Varanasi and I try to go there as often as possible. The city of Varanasi is a great retreat to me and there I’m always able to draw a lot.
I just uploaded recent drawings to the web. Have a look at the gallery page. You’ll find drawings made this year in Portugal and at home in Amsterdam along with my Varanasi 2004 serie.