Arno Kramer
The Netherlands
Since his first time as artist in residence in Ireland, Arno Kramer has been very much inspired by Irish poetry and by a photograph he once saw in The Irish Times of a shop with christening dresses. He has often used the image of the dresses in his work in relation to parts of the human body – hands, feet, etc. He often combines organic forms with inorganic forms.
His work is stratified, and the content reveals itself step by step. There is a clarity in the way the work is made, but also an enigmatic character and a little mystique in its composition and combination of images. By using watercolours and different drawing materials (charcoal, pencil and pastel), he searches for a sensitivity in his images. Layer upon layer he works on them until they achieve the mystery he is looking for. He has stated that there should always be ‘a state of desire’ in the drawings. He once wrote that he would like to make visible ‘the reconnaissance of the back of the soul, the spirit and the heart’.
(Text: heroes + holies catalogue, 2002)
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