ronald wigman 
portable art back
paintings / video / installations / graphic design / biography / t-shirts / sitemap
interview english
I think in more ways than one. Collecting postcards represented a need to go out into the world, to travel within four walls - because the collection consisted of cards from geographically different locations, different countries and cities. But I think that it is also related to my current work because that is the way in which I collect images: to create a new image and new imagination with the collected images. I think that may have been my first travels as a child. When I still lived with my parents, travelling meant was going to the beach for a day, or going from the Netherlands to the Belgian Ardennes, central Germany and later, Switzerland. We never thought about North Africa or the Middle East, not to mention Asia. It took a long time before I came to Asia for the first time (1995). The postcard-collection of my youth shows that I was interested in leaving the place where I lived to see where that would lead me.
Now you are living in Bali and we will talk about that in a moment. What strikes me most in your work – and this is something you yourself mention often – is the perspective that you regularly choose, the so-called ‘helicopter view’. Is this in any way related to looking at the postcards and dreaming about travelling or did it come about in a different way? Why this specific perspective?
As to why, I’m not able to give an exact answer. Where it may come from, you mention postcard (or ‘ansichtkaart’ in Dutch) you could leave out ‘post’ or ‘ansicht’ and then you are left with ‘card’ or ‘kaart’, which in Dutch also means ‘map’. When one travels as a writer, musician or artist one feels the need to ‘map out’ what one experiences or feels. And one can do this, for example, by describing in words or by painting vistas, as traditionally many painters used to do. In my case, travelling has resulted in a fascination for city maps, road maps, atlases and the globe. I once dreamed of – have not succeeded yet – making a journey with a space rocket. What the map does, it – is apparently intended for navigation - provides a reference point for what you have done in different locations. One can mark it with dots or numbers or crosses and by looking at the map one can see the area of one’s reach. And the map is interesting as a structure because by looking at the map of a city one can see - if you want to get to know the city - where you have to go and stay. And generally, that is – as I see it – the central area.
There one can find the bars, the shabby hotels, the brothels; that is where the train arrives, there one can find the cheap restaurants, and that is where common people meet. I would not choose one of the suburbs as a starting point. Irrespective of the city concerned, I would always want to arrive by train or, if by plane, get to the centre as soon as possible. And the maps of city centres fascinate me as they tell me much about the people living there.
To add to that, because you asked about my ‘bird’s eye’ view, in fact, that is the point of view we know from cartography. Good maps are also made from the air or by satellite. I have very often tried not to work in a map-oriented way - this has been going on for twenty years – and I always find myself automatically going back to it. There is no specific reason for it. I feel at ease with it because of my sense of structure, abstraction, overview and walking patterns. I am really attached to it. I regularly try to take leave of the top-down perspective but it is guaranteed to return again in some way or another.
So I’ve noticed! Another thing that strikes me in your work is that you often use fields, circumscribed fixed colours and lately, also increasingly, the obscuring or covering up of certain image elements. That you create a window and a depth-dimension. When I look outside through the window of your studio here in Bali - over the rice fields – one often sees a certain play of light that creates similar fields. Does this play a role in the way in which you work or is that a coincidence?
To start with the concept of coincidence – I am curious as to how that will sound in English – I believe in what a Dutch writer once said: coincidence is that which comes to you, coincides with you. There is no conscious relationship. I do think that the rice fields and also photography books about Bali that I have seen earlier very clearly indicate what structure the landscape has here. I also see this when I fly to the Netherlands, when we descend for landing through the grey wet clouds, I look at the landscape and think: well, someone has been busy here with a ruler. Unmistakable, the pattern of polders, the straight roads, to exaggerate, the map of Manhattan, which one can almost project onto the Dutch landscape. I find that a crucial difference with the landscape here. And what you see in the landscape also is reflected in the way of life, the climate and in all that is Indonesia. Also in Java, also in Sumatra. The structures are lasting, impressive. That is sub-conscious; I do not analyse it, but I accept the differences.
I see painting as an act of revelation but also as one of covering up. Because you are also using the brush to cover up. When I look at your work, the emphasis in your work seems to increasingly be on covering up. And in a certain sense on breaking up into shards and colour fields, windows and vistas. In your earlier work I see much more figuration...
... more harmony...
... yes, and I now increasingly see more text elements that you cover up as you paint, as though you are busy covering up something and this is showing up in an increasing number of your paintings.
Let’s say that when compared to a long time ago I am trying to work in phases. As a young painter I had much more of an urge to - WHAM – immediately create an image. Through education, training and experience one knows what one is able to portray, to imagine. But that can also be done through video, photography and other image techniques. Alternatively, one sits down and looks, which is also very satisfying. So I notice that for me that is not where the tension in an image is to be found. Or rather, it no longer is there. Currently, older elements that interested me come together in my work. Puzzles, maps, walking patterns, other patterns of movement and the ways in which people express themselves: music, texts, meeting one another, those are the moments that create a certain dynamic, also in painted images. If I would paint these moments literally I could never capture them. If I experience the emotion during working, an empty canvas, a colour field, a text, an image - WHAM – I cut through it with a knife, I hack it into pieces, I paint over it. Then I am really busy creating a map, an emotional map, which also shows a resemblance to a real map. In this regard, I am of the opinion, that - what you call covering up, I prefer to call it construction, working towards the outside – the skin of the painting becomes interesting because it starts showing the layeredness and really shows more of the process of what I have done, rather than the final image. Somebody who becomes fascinated by one of my paintings may perhaps have a relationship to the specific layeredness of one painting and not with that of another.
Something else that happens – you are correct when you say that my work contains shards, areas that have been obscured by paint – concerns two issues. In the first place, the map consists of shards. A city is a whole, but as soon as one looks at the city structure, one sees shards. Once I even literally painted a map (Antwerp-Belgium) on glass and then broke the painting to create shards. Secondly, a painting is not my work; it is a share in my work. Somebody who has one of my paintings has a share in my art company and only when I stop my work it will be more or less complete. The fragments in my work therefore reinforce the idea that, when one looks at the alphabet from A to Z, I find myself somewhere at the letter K or L. And somebody who sees my work now also finds himself halfway through the alphabet, perhaps also sees the B, the C and the F, but not yet the S and the T and neither do I, as I do not know yet.
That is the exciting part of the work I do and of my development and also of working in this place now. That I allow myself the time and the research without focusing on the result, to see how all the fragments relate to each other. That is perhaps the core of my work: will the puzzle ever be finished?
That brings me to my next question. One can say that in your work maps, overviews and designs play an important role. To use computer terminology, it seems as though your attention is shifting and whereas before the focus may have been on the motherboard and circuitry, now text enters your work and it seems you are more focused on the source code. On that which drives the process, on your own thoughts?
There is a painting hanging here in my house, which is a Dutch-Indonesian text about welcoming someone. Text, when taken out of context, becomes image. When one paints a text, enlarges it, cuts it up, rearranges it – think of Kurt Schwitters and Paul van Ostayen – one can use text to create images, not primarily to be read but to be looked at. I remember the artist-chemist Oey Tjeng Sit from Amsterdam, who, amongst other, used to make collages of the stock exchange pages from the papers because the texts had the perfect grey tone that he wanted to work with. Something that was meant as a publication becomes the material used for creating an image. In the same way, by choosing to use the theme ‘United colours of Religion’ for my recent work I do not only deal with images. Also with sensitivity that exists around texts and manuscripts. In preparation, I looked in art history books, at the way in which other people have expressed themselves. In this way I came across the Egyptians, the Arabs. In Bali, Sanskrit is a language still used for communication, just as Arabic is on other Indonesian islands. Because I am unable to read the texts I tend to see the scripts of other countries as pictography. It represents a type of source for what is essential: communication and miscommunication between people. To me, text is an exciting image element.
I do not only mean the fact that you use a text, but the fact that you choose to use the original text or proto-text. This also happens in your interpretation of the ‘The Last supper’ by Da Vinci. You incorporate primal elements in your composition. A type of ‘source code’ – to use a term reminiscent of the book The Da Vinci code – begins to reveal itself. In the interplay of all the proto-texts or primal images. I mean that where initially I saw in your work a certain superficiality, I now begin to see more depth – as a result of the play with primal elements – what I would then like to call the source code, which is really also the key to interpreting. One does not know it. It is hidden behind the process.
Two things come to mind. Text source and image source, although this is the same thing in the Chinese language. I have to think of what I read about my former (fellow)-countryman Piet Mondriaan, who said that the essence of painting as an art form is that we try to use old things to create something new. And to do so, destruction is essential. You have to use, transform, knead, tear and rearrange the sources you discover to come to a new form. It is not the same as a citation; it means ruining and positively reconstructing. The renovation of a monument is a process in which one assigns a new function to the monument and also visibly changes it. This courage, not to leave the monument as it is, but to construct a new building on the foundations of the old. The source code has then become an invisible element.
If we turn now to ‘United Colours of Religion’, it seems to me as though a new political element has entered into the work you produced for this exhibition. You told me that some of your paintingsæ the Da Vinci interpretation being the most importantæ have been refused for the exhibition in Jakarta because they contain references to the Roman Catholic church. My question is, is this a result of the current context you find yourself in Indonesia, is it a clever marketing gimmick, or do you have another intention? One could also imagine that your intention is not to provoke, but to combine all elements in a reconciliatory image.
I can be quite clear about that. It certainly is no gimmick. That is never the intention in my work. After several years in Europe, I returned to Indonesia in October 2005. In my studio there was a preliminary study of Islamic women gathered for a prayer service. This sketch probably had been made on the basis of a photograph in a newspaper. It exudes serenity, a type of virginity, which also reminded me of nuns meditating in a convent. When I saw the sketch I thought, well, religions really have much more in common than we would like to admit. We tend to look at the differences, but we could also focus on similarities. Because of this sketch, I started working on a triptych about the same group of women. The triptych is darker, but still very colourful, and because of the darker hues, some people who saw it asked me whether these were nuns. No I answered, but it could very well be. This proves the importance of a subtitle or title. Through this triptych I came to the theme and title ‘United Colours of Religion’, a title, which I was forced to abandon and change by the organisers of the exhibition.
I have now given my work the title: ‘Almost off the map’. The most important idea is to highlight the power of differences, that it is good that differences exist and that they all really express the same thing. I wanted to explore the symbols of the mainstream religions and come to an image of which I can say, at last, we are sitting together at the table, having a discussion. This brought me to a re-interpretation of the well-known ‘Last Supper’ by Da Vinci, which I call ‘The first supper’. The people, important in their time, are sitting together for dinner, for a discussion, and their objective is peace. When I saw this image I never thought these were Jews or Arabs or Christians, no these are merely people. And they all have different backgrounds. This is one of the images that caused trouble, but I think it is a beautiful image to re-use and it is also exactly 500 years old.
I sometimes ask myself whether anything has changed since 500 years ago. I’m afraid not, not much. This has also brought me to this image. A key image in this collection of paintings. Whereas Da Vinci leaves openings in the background or where the background is invisible, I show citations from my work about religion. No big deal. They belong there. This is why I was hurt by the fact that certain people in Jakarta are of the opinion that if one exhibits this image, it will cause problems. I cannot imagine how this can cause any problems, and if it does, it says more about the people who want problems, which is not what I want. Absolutely not. The same applies to my paintings that contain Arabian text in the background. I see the image of the letters as calligraphy, as general lettering without any religious meaning. Others do not see it that way. The source text says: ‘Freedom of expression’ in Arabic, and there is nothing wrong with that – it has nothing to do with religion. As a result, part of my work has to be shown in another exhibition space. This is a pity, and remarkable.
Is it not striking, does it not hurt you that it is the representation of Roman Catholicism in particular, the tradition you grew up in, that is causing problems?
No, as far as beliefs go I see myself more as a humanist...
... then it is actually funny...?
Yes, and then I think, come on, that one can get so excited about it. It’s a pity.
The word ‘funny’ then brings us to the following topic. There’s a certain playfulness in your work. You enjoy what you are doing – I am reminded of the way in which you show your work to me – you enjoy rearranging the panels to create new combinations as though you are playing with building blocks. Multi-functionality seems to be built into your paintings, which also seem to be very well thought-out in advance. By shifting the perspective you are able to repeatedly construct a new aesthetic composition.
I do not know whether it is so well planned. I am also often surprised by my own way of working. In the religious series, the focus shifts to the daily life in Bali. Every day and everywhere, people are busy with religious activities - very different to Europe. Colour, flowers, offerings, attention for one another, taking the time for one’s faith. In this series of paintings it is as though one zooms in on that which takes place all around one and as though the details are represented in an enlarged form. What seems to be confirmed by this, and which I did not know in advance, is that the shares I spoke about earlier, the pieces of the puzzle, when placed in a row, they join together. Without contradicting or diminishing one another. At the same time, I also produced stand-alone work for this series. It is exciting to see that one can expand or tilt fields, can turn them upside down or make cutouts. That is what produces the sense of a chain, the idea of a puzzle, that the work may never be completed.
And the re-arranging, the exchangeability, is that playfulness?
In each profession, whether one cooks, makes music or paints, one is always playing with the elements at one’s disposal. If the element of playfulness disappears, it becomes deadly serious, so serious that I would probably no longer enjoy it.
But some people here now take your work very seriously in Indonesia.
It all depends on what someone wants to distil from it. I give something, which is a result of the way I work – and you may give the meaning to the work that you prefer. Whether you feel insulted, laugh or enjoy, that is the mirror provided by painting as an art form.
I want to turn to something else. The fact that you use building blocks, primary colours, a certain transparency, a bordering of colour fields and forms in your work. What is the relationship between form, colour, composition and meaning in your work? You have mentioned Mondriaan. Was he a great source of inspiration?
I think Mondriaan is a painter pur sang. Also an artist pur sang, because he did not only express himself in paint, but also in text. He wrote manifestos, lectured, he provided inspiration to many people. He worked in a classical manner to earn money and in addition, did much research into images. I am not fascinated in the same way by all his work, although it has great power. But I am fascinated by his approach to painting as an art form. Also because he can be seen as a somewhat lonely figure amongst the painters of that period. There were no epigones of Mondriaan. There were even conflicts when a colleague produced similar work and came up with solutions that he would never have allowed himself to use. This caused a rift between them. What is extraordinary is that Mondriaan tried to remove all secondary meanings of form and colour, as a result of which one is left with a tight, rhythmical composition, primary colours. All of his final works are based on basic elements. No mixed tones, no spatial suggestion. Colour and composition determine the image. A type of purity. And he provides something that one can - according to his theory - use to create anew. Destroy, re-arrange and reconstruct. That may be the reason why I have been exclusively using primary colours for twenty-five years. But I use it to mix colours that Mondriaan no longer used.
I really hate the idea that a frame is finite. The moment one stretches a canvas one creates a limitation of space. Mondriaan’s work was very much about space and the idea that when one represents in a flat way, one gives a different dimension to space. He literally tried this out on the walls of his studio by using colour fields. He re-arranged furniture and other objects vertically and horizontally. I love the diagonal, because it does not stop. A painting with diagonals or a field that seems to fall from it seems to carry on infinitely. The space between the fields can become a wall or a piece of wall can become part of a painting. I am happy to use the discoveries done by painters such as Mondriaan. Because of the maps I create, I sometimes see myself as an architect messing about with paint. I want to do things with, to influence spaces. That is why I sometimes hate paintings, because they have limitations.
You also create installations. How do you relate to conceptual art, installations and other disciplines?
There are no strict borders. Only the choice of material determines borders. Painting is portable; at least I always make sure that it is, that you can take the painting with you. Because I see a relationship between portable work and portable ideas. Therefore doubly portable.
This suits your point of departure, which is travelling?
Yes that is what travelling is. Travelling brings new perspectives, distance to earlier work, other cultures and styles. Travelling disturbs everything and creates a pleasant chaos. As a result of travelling one chooses the image elements that are suitable to the moment. As a painter one can look, but one can also use a camera. One can use colour, therefore one is able to create and manipulate spaces. When one paints in a very flat way, as I do, one probably has a much better understanding of space and this is very useful when one is creating installations. One asks oneself how would people be looking, how would they move about and how would they relate to the objects that one has placed. What would the colour be that they assign to the space if I do not do it. I believe these different disciplines can be combined. But the art of painting forces one to ask oneself certain questions. And it also forces one to dare to let go of a certain limitation such as the frame. Then the other disciplines such as electronic painting (video) and installations are very helpful.
You say that painting teaches one to look at things, also at oneself, one’s own history. When you think about the changes in your work, the development, are there certain themes that keep recurring as a central theme? Are there things that have only begun to fascinate you now? Where do you think it is moving? To provide an additional stimulus: I obviously see the return of geography, maps and much of what we have been discussing. But I also see a change from external to internal. From material to immaterial, from flatness to depth, from figurative to abstract. Is that a new field of tension in your work? Also, a more personal search. Looking inside from outside?
That is the pleasure and usefulness of such an interview. That I am stimulated to reflect more on my paintings than I would do otherwise. While working, I do not think about it so concretely. What I do realize very well is that if I would like to earn money more easily I would have to produce a different type of work. By that I mean: producing images with the mere purpose to please others. This does not interest me in the least. I do experience great pleasure when I meet people who feel something for my work – not so much on the basis of recognition, but on the basis of not yet recognizing. What is happening in the working process at the moment, this started one year and a half ago in the Netherlands, is the way the outline of a figure is presented. In the past, the lines were dark and surprisingly, they have now become white. White is often the basic colour of a piece of paper, an empty canvas. The white line does not look as though it has been added but left unpainted, while the line has been painted. In fact, the line cuts the image into pieces. This cutting provides me with patterns such as a road, a freeway, intersections, walking routes, thought patterns and so on. What fascinates me is that all the white lines continue and the fields between them are not so important any more. The secondary form no longer dominates the core form. The line becomes a form and the fields become transitional forms. This rearranges the relationships in the image and the meanings it has.
The point of gravity is changing? The work becomes lighter?
Everything could fall apart at any moment...
... but that is also lightness!
Yes, tomorrow it could be different. I keep the image flat, as this allows one to rearrange. When one paints spatially, this is not possible. This is what has lead to the research into lines, to see whether the lines could determine the image. This is not something I plan but while I’m working I think this is what it is about. What do these lines do? In turn, they create fields and structures. Where that will lead? I have no idea. I cannot say where I will be in a year’s time. It can go anywhere, I have no idea.
Then the lines may completely detach themselves from the canvas?
Everything’s possible. It is difficult to say at the moment. The beauty of living and working here in Indonesia is – compared to my daily life in Europe - that I have much more time and focus to try out new things. Do I want to work in a different way? Yes. Surprise myself. In my last painting I recognise many of the things I have done during the past thirty years. That is quite strange. Text, covering up, city maps, metro net, cities that are becoming too full, the earth bursting at the seams, the planet being destroyed. I think I can find it all back in my work. For the rest, let everybody make his or her own interpretation.
The internalisation of the process as reflection on what is happening outside, is that the new possibility?
Painting is a very direct technique. All sorts of information are filtered when one starts working. That cannot always be pinpointed. Zeitgeist co-determines what the character of a painting will be. It is very good to remain true to yourself. I say: I create an image because I want it myself, because I want to express myself in that way, not because I want to please others. It may become chaos, a mess that cannot be interpreted, harmony. Everything’s possible. Even with no outcome I think it is fascinating to continue. And that is an internalisation, because the relationship to the outside world influences everything, but I never ask myself what my image does to the outside world. With regard to that, there is no end in sight, only a starting point.
Pejeng, April 2006
