SAUDADE - KUNSTENFESTIVAL WATOU
Hans van der Ham (1960) studied classical piano at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and also at the Utrecht Conservatory from which he graduated in 1984. He went on to study autonomous art at the Academy of Visual Arts in Rotterdam, where he graduated in painting, drawing and graphic design in 1989. Since 1989 Van der Ham has worked in Rotterdam as an independent creator of visual arts and has held regular exhibitions both at home and abroad. His work is represented in the Netherlands by galerie Nouvelles Images, The Hague and is represented in various museum collections. In 2012, Van der Ham co-founded Garage Rotterdam, of which he was artistic director and curator until 2015.
Ever since his childhood Van der Ham has had a strong urge for a surrealist world. At that time it exposed itself for instance in hiding all sorts of things he had made himself or that were found by him. Things that only he knew about. He thus created his own secret treasury. This now is manifest not only in dreams but also in his art. Observing his art is thus experienced as ‘the recollection of a dream’. Van der Ham not only appeals to our imagination but he also touches a tender spot.
Not much later the urge for the intuitive comes back. What he subsequently transforms into images feels as a freedom one can only experience in a dream that verges on the incredible. Only when Van der Ham succeeds herein he considers his work successful and will it deserve right to exist, after which it may live on independently.
The two works that are to be seen here in the corn shed form a perfect example of this combination.The drawing in ink forms part of the series Airloom. Hereto Van der Ham based himself on the machine with the same name that was constructed in the eighteenth century by a man who suffered from schizophrenia. The purpose of the machine was to steer and influence human decisions.
At times Van der Ham also feels like being influenced by such machine. Those are moments at which his ratio takes over and the artist dictates. Not long after that the urge for the for the intuitive comes back.What he thereafter converts into statues feels like a freedom one can only feel in a dream that borders madness.
The second item, a gouache (painting technique comparable with the aquarelle) is a reaction to his ink drawings. While in an ink drawing every line you draw is definite, in a gouache this is variable. Van der Ham finds it exciting to have something come into being from stains and failures. This awakens his subconscious and makes him feel free.
Despite the intimacy of the format and the material, this technique offers the possibility to create a much wider world. Let that be exactly what Van der Ham longs for.
