AIR LOOM

AIR LOOM is an imaginary machine from the eighteenth century, conceived by a psychiatric patient in London who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. According to the patient, this machine would be located somewhere in a hidden basement, close to his house, and could control his full actions by means of magnetism. In addition, he believed that the same machine (there were more) also influenced political decisions at the time, because several prominent people in the government would be controlled by this machine too. Hans van der Ham (Eindhoven, 1960) often feels connected to such a machine as well. These are the moments when reason threatens to control his work. When no escape route seems to exist out of one's own head. The moment when Apollo does not want to abandon the situation and dictates the artist forcefully from a previously conceived concept. When subsequently forms from the drawing pen arise that could easily contain a literary equivalent. A beating story that could also have been captured in words. Then there is the need to get connected to an intuitive source. Perhaps also an air loom, but now one that consists of pure poetry without literal meaning. A Dionysian festival of the muses. An air loom that Apollo does not have a key to and is just astonishingly watching. A freedom as in a dream that borders on the insane.

Hans van der Ham, 2019